External storage manager for a data storage cell

ABSTRACT

A storage management solution according to certain embodiments is provided which decouples certain aspects of the storage manager from the data storage cell. The data storage system according to certain aspects can provide one or more external storage managers that manage data protection and administer the operation of data storage cells. According to certain aspects, usage of the decoupled storage manager can be allocated amongst multiple data storage cells, such as by data storage cells of multiple companies, sub-units of a company, or both.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.14/928,858, filed on Oct. 30, 2015 and titled “EXTERNAL STORAGE MANAGERFOR A DATA STORAGE CELL,” which is a continuation of U.S. applicationSer. No. 13/786,963, filed on Mar. 6, 2013 and titled “EXTERNAL STORAGEMANAGER FOR A DATA STORAGE CELL,” which claims the benefit of priorityunder 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/658,563,filed on Jun. 12, 2012 and titled “SHARING STORAGE MANAGEMENT RESOURCESAMONGST MULTIPLE DATA STORAGE CELLS IN A NETWORKED DATA STORAGE SYSTEM.”Any and all applications for which a foreign or domestic priority claimis identified in the Application Data Sheet of the present applicationare hereby incorporated by reference under 37 CFR 1.57.

BACKGROUND

Businesses worldwide recognize the commercial value of their data andseek reliable, cost-effective ways to protect the information stored ontheir computer networks while minimizing impact on productivity.Protecting information is often part of a routine process that isperformed within an organization.

A company might back up critical computing systems such as databases,file servers, web servers, and so on as part of a daily, weekly, ormonthly maintenance schedule. The company may similarly protectcomputing systems used by each of its employees, such as those used byan accounting department, marketing department, engineering department,and so forth.

Given the rapidly expanding volume of data under management, companiesalso continue to seek innovative techniques for managing data growth, inaddition to protecting data. For instance, companies often implementmigration techniques for moving data to lower cost storage over time anddata reduction techniques for reducing redundant data, pruning lowerpriority data, etc.

Enterprises also increasingly view their stored data as a valuableasset. Along these lines, customers are looking for solutions that notonly protect and manage, but also leverage their data. For instance,solutions providing data analysis capabilities, improved datapresentation and access features, and the like, are in increasingdemand.

SUMMARY

Due to the above challenges, there is a need for off-loading some of theburden associated with administering an organization's informationstorage and management systems. In order to address these and otherchallenges, certain data storage systems disclosed herein providestorage management functionality that is administered and/or residesexternally to the organization's data storage infrastructure. Moreover,a streamlined, light-weight interface such as a web-portal or otherinterface can be provided to the organization for accessing the storagemanagement functionality.

For instance, an entity/organization's (or organizational sub-unit's)data storage infrastructure may be referred to as a data storage cell,which generally includes combinations of hardware and softwarecomponents for performing storage operations on the organization's data.Such componentry can include, without limitation, production computingmachines having one or more user applications executing thereon, primarystorage devices for maintaining primary copies of the production machinedata, as well secondary storage devices for maintaining secondary copiesof the production data (e.g., backup copies, archive copies, snapshotcopies, replication copies, etc.). The cell can also include a set ofspecialized software modules, e.g., executing on the production machinesfor managing data storage and protection operations. And, a storagemanager generally coordinates and controls the various components in thesystem. For example, a storage manager may communicate with all elementsof a data storage cell to initiate and manage system backups,migrations, recoveries, and the like.

According to certain embodiments, a storage management solution isprovided which decouples certain aspects of the storage manager from thedata storage cell itself. Instead, the decoupled storage manager can bemaintained and administered by another party, such as a party havingspecialized knowledge for managing the data storage system, or a partyotherwise better-suited than the organization for administering thedecoupled storage manager.

According to certain aspects, usage of the decoupled storage manager canbe allocated amongst multiple data storage cells, such as by datastorage cells of multiple companies, of multiple sub-units of a company,or both. For example, Company A and Company B may each implement a datastorage cell A and B, respectively, and Company C can provide anexternal storage manager to data storage cells A and B. The storagemanager provided by Company C would manage the protection of data anddata storage operations for data storage cells A and B. For instance, asharing scheme can be used to manage shared usage of the storagemanager. In this manner, rather than having each organization manage itsown data storage cell, storage management functionality is centralized,providing a more uniform management solution by a potentiallybetter-suited party. In one aspect, it can be described that Company Aand Company B are “leasing” or “renting” a storage manager from CompanyC. For instance, Company C may be a provider of the data storage systemor certain components thereof. As an example, storage cells A and B eachimplement Simpana Data & Information Management Software, available fromCommVault, Inc., of Oceanport, N.J., while the de-coupled storagemanager is maintained at CommVault, Inc (Company C).

The data storage system according to certain aspects can provide one ormore external storage managers that manage data protection andadminister the operation of data storage cells. After a user associatedwith a data storage cell creates user credentials and installs the datastorage system package on a client, the client may be registered withone or more storage managers. The client may send registration requeststo a storage manager through a proxy server. When a storage managerreceives the registration request from a client, the storage manager mayplace the client in a waiting room or group to be processed forregistration. The storage manager can apply any appropriate businesslogic while the client is in the waiting room. For example, the storagemanager can check whether the company or the user associated with thedata storage cell is up to date with payments for using the storagemanager services.

The storage manager may include a storage manager allocation module thatgenerally processes registration requests from clients. The storagemanager allocation module may periodically or otherwise check thewaiting room for any clients that are waiting for registration. If theallocation module finds a client in the waiting room, the allocationmodule determines the group for the client and associates the clientwith the characteristics of the group. After the client is associatedwith the group, the registration of the client is complete.

After registration, a request can be made to the storage manager toperform a data storage operation, such as backup of production datagenerated by the corresponding data storage cell. For instance, a usermay interact with a web portal or other user interface that allows theuser to issue requests to the storage manager to perform data storageoperations and other management functionality. The interface may be agraphical user interface (“GUI”), for example, including a controlpanel.

As indicated previously, associated personnel associated with theindividual client data storage cells may not have specialized knowledgefor performing certain storage manager actions. For instance, suchpersonnel may not be familiar with certain administrative functionsassociated with the storage manager, for configuring the storagemanager, etc. Moreover, because the storage manager can, in someembodiment, be shared between multiple client storage cells, it may bedisadvantageous to provide personnel associated with the individualstorage cells with the ability to perform certain storage managerfunctions, such as configuring multi-client sharing parameters, as justone example. Thus, according to certain aspects, the user interfaceincludes a reduced set of control capability in comparison to thecomplete set of control capability associated with the storage manager.This is in contrast to the scenario where a storage manager is internalto the data storage cell (e.g., where the storage manager resides withinor is otherwise a part of the data storage cell). Accordingly, thecontrol capability available through the user interface may be a subsetof the control capability associated with the storage manager. In thismanner, an operator associated with the data storage cell (e.g., acompany employee) can request that the decoupled, external storagemanager initiate and/or manage certain storage operations and otheractions, but certain storage manager functions are reserved for accessby personnel associated with the decoupled storage manager.

Upon receipt of the data storage operation request, the storage managerperforms the requested data storage operation. For example, in responseto a backup request, the storage manager may initiate backup andinstruct components of the data storage cell to perform appropriatetasks.

In this manner, managing the operation of data storage cells can becomeless complex and more high-level, reducing the time and effort involvedin managing data storage cells and data storage systems. For example,because much of the storage management tasks are off-loaded to acentralized management entity, burden on internal company personnel issignificantly reduced. It may be particularly burdensome for small- andmedium-sized business to have to dedicate resources to managing theirdata and information management needs. Thus, the advantages associatedwith the decoupled management techniques provided herein, includingsaving time and resources that would otherwise be dedicated toadministering an organization's information and data management systemmay be especially important to small- or medium-sized organizations.

In addition, the external storage manager in some embodiments performsonly control actions, and the data of the client data storage cells doesnot pass through or otherwise become accessible to the external storagemanager. Thus, the data of an organization can be privately maintainedand secure when using an external storage manager. Using an externalstorage manager can also provide an organization with a dedicatedadministrator who can troubleshoot problems on the storage manager sideor in the data storage cell.

According to certain embodiments, a method for providing shared datastorage management services to a plurality of data storage cells isprovided. The method comprises receiving, by a storage manager executingon one or more computer processors, a request from a first data storagecell of a plurality of data storage cells to register at least a firstcomponent of the first data storage cell such that the first componentcan utilize storage management services provided by the storage manager.Each data storage cell in the plurality of data storage cells comprisesat least one or more client computing devices each having at least onesoftware application executing thereon generating production data, andone or more storage devices configured to store copies of the productiondata, wherein the one or more client computing devices and the one ormore storage devices are separate from the one or more computerprocessors. The method further comprises processing, by the storagemanager, the received registration request to associate the firstcomponent with a first group of data storage cell components that arealready registered by the storage manager, assigning to the firstcomponent at least a first characteristic that is associated with thefirst group of data storage cell components, and registering the firstcomponent such that the first component can utilize the storagemanagement services provided by the storage manager.

According to other embodiments, a data storage system configured toprovide shared data storage management services to a plurality of datastorage cells is provided. The system comprises a storage managerexecuting on one or more computer processors and configured to receive arequest from a first data storage cell of a plurality of data storagecells to register at least a first component of the first data storagecell such that the first component can utilize storage managementservices provided by the storage manager. Each data storage cell in theplurality of data storage cells comprises at least one or more clientcomputing devices each having at least one software applicationexecuting thereon generating production data, and one or more storagedevices configured to store copies of the production data, wherein theone or more client computing devices and the one or more storage devicesare separate from the one or more computer processors. The storagemanager is further configured to process the received registrationrequest to associate the first component with a first group of datastorage cell components that are already registered by the storagemanager, assign to the first component at least a first characteristicthat is associated with the first group of data storage cell components,and register the first component.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary informationmanagement system.

FIG. 1B is a detailed view of a primary storage device, a secondarystorage device, and some examples of primary data and secondary copydata.

FIG. 1C is a block diagram of an exemplary information management systemincluding a storage manager, one or more data agents, and one or moremedia agents.

FIG. 1D is a block diagram illustrating a scalable informationmanagement system.

FIG. 1E illustrates certain secondary copy operations according to anexemplary storage policy.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an example data storage system architectureincluding multiple data storage cells and an external storage managerthat performs management operations and data storage operations for thedata storage cells, according to certain embodiments.

FIG. 3 is a data flow diagram illustrative of the interaction betweenthe various components of an example data storage system includingexternal storage manager and storage cells, according to certainembodiments.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrative of one embodiment of a routineimplemented by a data storage cell that utilizes an external storagemanager.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrative of one embodiment of a routineimplemented by a data storage system that provides an external storagemanager to multiple data storage cells.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrative of one embodiment of a routineimplemented by a data storage system that provides an external storagemanager to data storage cells.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods are described herein for implementing a externalstorage manager for a data storage cell in a data storage system.Examples of such systems and methods are discussed in further detailherein, e.g., with respect to FIGS. 2-6. Shared data storage for aplurality of data storage cells may additionally be implemented byinformation management systems such as those that will now be describedwith respect to FIGS. 1A-1E. And, as will be described, the componentryand methods for implementing shared data storage management services toa plurality of data storage cells described herein can be incorporatedinto and implemented by such systems.

Information Management System Overview

With the increasing importance of protecting and leveraging data,organizations simply cannot afford to take the risk of losing criticaldata. Moreover, runaway data growth and other modern realities makeprotecting and managing data an increasingly difficult task. There istherefore a need for efficient, powerful, and user-friendly solutionsfor protecting and managing data.

Depending on the size of the organization, there are typically many dataproduction sources which are under the purview of tens, hundreds, oreven thousands of employees or other individuals. In the past,individual employees were sometimes responsible for managing andprotecting their data. A patchwork of hardware and software pointsolutions has been applied in other cases. These solutions were oftenprovided by different vendors and had limited or no interoperability.

Certain embodiments described herein provide systems and methods capableof addressing these and other shortcomings of prior approaches byimplementing unified, organization-wide information management. FIG. 1Ashows one such information management system 100, which generallyincludes combinations of hardware and software configured to protect andmanage data and metadata generated and used by the various computingdevices in the information management system 100.

The organization which employs the information management system 100 maybe a corporation or other business entity, non-profit organization,educational institution, household, governmental agency, or the like.

Generally, the systems and associated components described herein may becompatible with and/or provide some or all of the functionality of thesystems and corresponding components described in one or more of thefollowing U.S. patents and patent application publications assigned toCommVault Systems, Inc., each of which is hereby incorporated in itsentirety by reference herein:

-   -   U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2010-0332456, entitled “DATA OBJECT STORE AND        SERVER FOR A CLOUD STORAGE ENVIRONMENT, INCLUDING DATA        DEDUPLICATION AND DATA MANAGEMENT ACROSS MULTIPLE CLOUD STORAGE        SITES”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,035,880, entitled “MODULAR BACKUP AND RETRIEVAL        SYSTEM USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH A STORAGE AREA NETWORK”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, entitled “HIERARCHICAL SYSTEMS AND        METHODS FOR PROVIDING A UNIFIED VIEW OF STORAGE INFORMATION”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,395,282, entitled “HIERARCHICAL BACKUP AND        RETRIEVAL SYSTEM”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,246,207, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR        DYNAMICALLY PERFORMING STORAGE OPERATIONS IN A COMPUTER        NETWORK”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,747,579, entitled “METABASE FOR FACILITATING        DATA CLASSIFICATION”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,229,954, entitled “MANAGING COPIES OF DATA”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,617,262, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR        MONITORING APPLICATION DATA IN A DATA REPLICATION SYSTEM”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 7,529,782, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR        PERFORMING A SNAPSHOT AND FOR RESTORING DATA”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,230,195, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR        PERFORMING AUXILIARY STORAGE OPERATIONS”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,364,652, entitled “CONTENT-ALIGNED, BLOCK-BASED        DEDUPLICATION”;    -   U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2006/0224846, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD TO        SUPPORT SINGLE INSTANCE STORAGE OPERATIONS”;    -   U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2009/0329534, entitled “APPLICATION-AWARE AND        REMOTE SINGLE INSTANCE DATA MANAGEMENT”;    -   U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2012/0150826, entitled “DISTRIBUTED        DEDUPLICATED STORAGE SYSTEM”;    -   U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2012/0150818, entitled “CLIENT-SIDE        REPOSITORY IN A NETWORKED DEDUPLICATED STORAGE SYSTEM”;    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,170,995, entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR OFFLINE        INDEXING OF CONTENT AND CLASSIFYING STORED DATA”; and    -   U.S. Pat. No. 8,156,086, entitled “SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR        STORED DATA VERIFICATION”.

The illustrated information management system 100 includes one or moreclient computing device 102 having at least one application 110executing thereon, and one or more primary storage devices 104 storingprimary data 112. The client computing device(s) 102 and the primarystorage devices 104 may generally be referred to in some cases as aprimary storage subsystem 117.

Depending on the context, the term “information management system” canrefer to generally all of the illustrated hardware and softwarecomponents. Or, in other instances, the term may refer to only a subsetof the illustrated components.

For instance, in some cases information management system 100 generallyrefers to a combination of specialized components used to protect, move,manage, manipulate and/or process data and metadata generated by theclient computing devices 102. However, the term may generally not referto the underlying components that generate and/or store the primary data112, such as the client computing devices 102 themselves, theapplications 110 and operating system residing on the client computingdevices 102, and the primary storage devices 104.

As an example, “information management system” may sometimes refer onlyto one or more of the following components and corresponding datastructures: storage managers, data agents, and media agents. Thesecomponents will be described in further detail below.

Client Computing Devices

There are typically a variety of sources in an organization that producedata to be protected and managed. As just one illustrative example, in acorporate environment such data sources can be employee workstations andcompany servers such as a mail server, a web server, or the like. In theinformation management system 100, the data generation sources includethe one or more client computing devices 102.

The client computing devices 102 may include, without limitation, one ormore: workstations, personal computers, desktop computers, or othertypes of generally fixed computing systems such as mainframe computersand minicomputers.

The client computing devices 102 can also include mobile or portablecomputing devices, such as one or more laptops, tablet computers,personal data assistants, mobile phones (such as smartphones), and othermobile or portable computing devices such as embedded computers, set topboxes, vehicle-mounted devices, wearable computers, etc.

In some cases, each client computing device 102 is associated with oneor more users and/or corresponding user accounts, of employees or otherindividuals.

The term “client computing device” is used herein because theinformation management system 100 generally “serves” the data managementand protection needs for the data generated by the client computingdevices 102. However, the use of this term does not imply that theclient computing devices 102 cannot be “servers” in other respects. Forinstance, a particular client computing device 102 may act as a serverwith respect to other devices, such as other client computing devices102. As just a few examples, the client computing devices 102 caninclude mail servers, file servers, database servers, and web servers.

The client computing devices 102 may additionally include virtualizedand/or cloud computing resources. For instance, one or more virtualmachines may be provided to the organization by a third-party cloudservice vendor. Or, in some embodiments, the client computing devices102 include one or more virtual machine(s) running on a virtual machinehost computing device operated by the organization. As one example, theorganization may use one virtual machine as a database server andanother virtual machine as a mail server. A virtual machine manager(VMM) (e.g., a Hypervisor) may manage the virtual machines, and resideand execute on the virtual machine host computing device.

Each client computing device 102 may have one or more applications 110(e.g., software applications) executing thereon which generate andmanipulate the data that is to be protected from loss.

The applications 110 generally facilitate the operations of anorganization (or multiple affiliated organizations), and can include,without limitation, mail server applications (e.g., Microsoft ExchangeServer), file server applications, mail client applications (e.g.,Microsoft Exchange Client), database applications (e.g., SQL, Oracle,SAP, Lotus Notes Database), word processing applications (e.g.,Microsoft Word), spreadsheet applications, financial applications,presentation applications, browser applications, mobile applications,entertainment applications, and so on.

The applications 110 can include at least one operating system (e.g.,Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, IBM z/OS, Linux, other Unix-basedoperating systems, etc.), which may support one or more file systems andhost the other applications 110.

As shown, the client computing devices 102 and other components in theinformation management system 100 can be connected to one another viaone or more communication pathways 114. The communication pathways 114can include one or more networks or other connection types including asany of following, without limitation: the Internet, a wide area network(WAN), a local area network (LAN), a Storage Area Network (SAN), a FibreChannel connection, a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) connection,a virtual private network (VPN), a token ring or TCP/IP based network,an intranet network, a point-to-point link, a cellular network, awireless data transmission system, a two-way cable system, aninteractive kiosk network, a satellite network, a broadband network, abaseband network, other appropriate wired, wireless, or partiallywired/wireless computer or telecommunications networks, combinations ofthe same or the like. The communication pathways 114 in some cases mayalso include application programming interfaces (APIs) including, e.g.,cloud service provider APIs, virtual machine management APIs, and hostedservice provider APIs.

Primary Data and Exemplary Primary Storage Devices

Primary data 112 according to some embodiments is production data orother “live” data generated by the operating system and otherapplications 110 residing on a client computing device 102. The primarydata 112 is stored on the primary storage device(s) 104 and is organizedvia a file system supported by the client computing device 102. Forinstance, the client computing device(s) 102 and correspondingapplications 110 may create, access, modify, write, delete, andotherwise use primary data 112.

Primary data 112 is generally in the native format of the sourceapplication 110. According to certain aspects, primary data 112 is aninitial or first (e.g., created before any other copies or before atleast one other copy) stored copy of data generated by the sourceapplication 110. Primary data 112 in some cases is created substantiallydirectly from data generated by the corresponding source applications110.

The primary data 112 may sometimes be referred to as a “primary copy” inthe sense that it is a discrete set of data. However, the use of thisterm does not necessarily imply that the “primary copy” is a copy in thesense that it was copied or otherwise derived from another storedversion.

The primary storage devices 104 storing the primary data 112 may berelatively fast and/or expensive (e.g., a disk drive, a hard-disk array,solid state memory, etc.). In addition, primary data 112 may be intendedfor relatively short term retention (e.g., several hours, days, orweeks).

According to some embodiments, the client computing device 102 canaccess primary data 112 from the primary storage device 104 by makingconventional file system calls via the operating system. Primary data112 representing files may include structured data (e.g., databasefiles), unstructured data (e.g., documents), and/or semi-structureddata. Some specific examples are described below with respect to FIG.1B.

It can be useful in performing certain tasks to break the primary data112 up into units of different granularities. In general, primary data112 can include files, directories, file system volumes, data blocks,extents, or any other types or granularities of data objects. As usedherein, a “data object” can refer to both (1) any file that is currentlyaddressable by a file system or that was previously addressable by thefile system (e.g., an archive file) and (2) a subset of such a file.

As will be described in further detail, it can also be useful inperforming certain functions of the information management system 100 toaccess and modify metadata within the primary data 112. Metadatagenerally includes information about data objects or characteristicsassociated with the data objects.

Metadata can include, without limitation, one or more of the following:the data owner (e.g., the client or user that generates the data), thelast modified time (e.g., the time of the most recent modification ofthe data object), a data object name (e.g., a file name), a data objectsize (e.g., a number of bytes of data), information about the content(e.g., an indication as to the existence of a particular search term),to/from information for email (e.g., an email sender, recipient, etc.),creation date, file type (e.g., format or application type), lastaccessed time, application type (e.g., type of application thatgenerated the data object), location/network (e.g., a current, past orfuture location of the data object and network pathways to/from the dataobject), frequency of change (e.g., a period in which the data object ismodified), business unit (e.g., a group or department that generates,manages or is otherwise associated with the data object), and aginginformation (e.g., a schedule, such as a time period, in which the dataobject is migrated to secondary or long term storage), boot sectors,partition layouts, file location within a file folder directorystructure, user permissions, owners, groups, access control lists[ACLs]), system metadata (e.g., registry information), combinations ofthe same or the like.

In addition to metadata generated by or related to file systems andoperating systems, some of the applications 110 maintain indices ofmetadata for data objects, e.g., metadata associated with individualemail messages. Thus, each data object may be associated withcorresponding metadata. The use of metadata to perform classificationand other functions is described in greater detail below.

Each of the client computing devices 102 are associated with and/or incommunication with one or more of the primary storage devices 104storing corresponding primary data 112. A client computing device 102may be considered to be “associated with” or “in communication with” aprimary storage device 104 if it is capable of one or more of: storingdata to the primary storage device 104, retrieving data from the primarystorage device 104, and modifying data retrieved from a primary storagedevice 104.

The primary storage devices 104 can include, without limitation, diskdrives, hard-disk arrays, semiconductor memory (e.g., solid statedrives), and network attached storage (NAS) devices. In some cases, theprimary storage devices 104 form part of a distributed file system. Theprimary storage devices 104 may have relatively fast I/O times and/orare relatively expensive in comparison to the secondary storage devices108. For example, the information management system 100 may generallyregularly access data and metadata stored on primary storage devices104, whereas data and metadata stored on the secondary storage devices108 is accessed relatively less frequently.

In some cases, each primary storage device 104 is dedicated to anassociated client computing devices 102. For instance, a primary storagedevice 104 in one embodiment is a local disk drive of a correspondingclient computing device 102. In other cases, one or more primary storagedevices 104 can be shared by multiple client computing devices 102. Asone example, a primary storage device 104 can be a disk array shared bya group of client computing devices 102, such as one of the followingtypes of disk arrays: EMC Clariion, EMC Symmetrix, EMC Celerra, DellEqualLogic, IBM XIV, NetApp FAS, HP EVA, and HP 3PAR.

The information management system 100 may also include hosted services(not shown), which may be hosted in some cases by an entity other thanthe organization that employs the other components of the informationmanagement system 100. For instance, the hosted services may be providedby various online service providers to the organization. Such serviceproviders can provide services including social networking services,hosted email services, or hosted productivity applications or otherhosted applications).

Hosted services may include software-as-a-service (SaaS),platform-as-a-service (PaaS), application service providers (ASPs),cloud services, or other mechanisms for delivering functionality via anetwork. As it provides services to users, each hosted service maygenerate additional data and metadata under management of theinformation management system 100, e.g., as primary data 112. In somecases, the hosted services may be accessed using one of the applications110. As an example, a hosted mail service may be accessed via browserrunning on a client computing device 102.

Secondary Copies and Exemplary Secondary Storage Devices

The primary data 112 stored on the primary storage devices 104 may becompromised in some cases, such as when an employee deliberately oraccidentally deletes or overwrites primary data 112 during their normalcourse of work. Or the primary storage devices 104 can be damaged orotherwise corrupted.

For recovery and/or regulatory compliance purposes, it is thereforeuseful to generate copies of the primary data 112. Accordingly, theinformation management system 100 includes one or more secondary storagecomputing devices 106 and one or more secondary storage devices 108configured to create and store one or more secondary copies 116 of theprimary data 112 and associated metadata. The secondary storagecomputing devices 106 and the secondary storage devices 108 may bereferred to in some cases as a secondary storage subsystem 118.

Creation of secondary copies 116 can help meet information managementgoals, such as: restoring data and/or metadata if an original version(e.g., of primary data 112) is lost (e.g., by deletion, corruption, ordisaster); allowing point-in-time recovery; complying with regulatorydata retention and electronic discovery (e-discovery) requirements;reducing utilized storage capacity; facilitating organization and searchof data; improving user access to data files across multiple computingdevices and/or hosted services; and implementing data retentionpolicies.

Types of secondary copy operations can include, without limitation,backup operations, archive operations, snapshot operations, replicationoperations (e.g., continuous data replication [CDR]), data retentionpolicies such as information lifecycle management and hierarchicalstorage management operations, and the like. These specific typesoperations are discussed in greater detail below.

Regardless of the type of secondary copy operation, the client computingdevices 102 access or receive primary data 112 and communicate the data,e.g., over the communication pathways 114, for storage in the secondarystorage device(s) 108.

A secondary copy 116 can comprise a separate stored copy of applicationdata that is derived from one or more earlier created, stored copies(e.g., derived from primary data 112 or another secondary copy 116).Secondary copies 116 can include point-in-time data, and may be intendedfor relatively long-term retention (e.g., weeks, months or years),before some or all of the data is moved to other storage or isdiscarded.

In some cases, a secondary copy 116 is a copy of application datacreated and stored subsequent to at least one other stored instance(e.g., subsequent to corresponding primary data 112 or to anothersecondary copy 116), in a different storage device than at least oneprevious stored copy, and/or remotely from at least one previous storedcopy. Secondary copies 116 may be stored in relatively slow and/or lowcost storage (e.g., magnetic tape). A secondary copy 116 may be storedin a backup or archive format, or in some other format different thanthe native source application format or other primary data format.

In some cases, secondary copies 116 are indexed so users can browse andrestore at another point in time. After creation of a secondary copy 116representative of certain primary data 112, a pointer or other locationindicia (e.g., a stub) may be placed in primary data 112, or beotherwise associated with primary data 112 to indicate the currentlocation on the secondary storage device(s) 108.

Since an instance a data object or metadata in primary data 112 maychange over time as it is modified by an application 110 (or hostedservice or the operating system), the information management system 100may create and manage multiple secondary copies 116 of a particular dataobject or metadata, each representing the state of the data object inprimary data 112 at a particular point in time. Moreover, since aninstance of a data object in primary data 112 may eventually be deletedfrom the primary storage device 104 and the file system, the informationmanagement system 100 may continue to manage point-in-timerepresentations of that data object, even though the instance in primarydata 112 no longer exists.

For virtualized computing devices the operating system and otherapplications 110 of the client computing device(s) 102 may executewithin or under the management of virtualization software (e.g., a VMM),and the primary storage device(s) 104 may comprise a virtual diskcreated on a physical storage device. The information management system100 may create secondary copies 116 of the files or other data objectsin a virtual disk file and/or secondary copies 116 of the entire virtualdisk file itself (e.g., of an entire .vmdk file).

Secondary copies 116 may be distinguished from corresponding primarydata 112 in a variety of ways, some of which will now be described.First, as discussed, secondary copies 116 can be stored in a differentformat (e.g., backup, archive, or other non-native format) than primarydata 112. For this or other reasons, secondary copies 116 may not bedirectly useable by the applications 110 of the client computing device102, e.g., via standard system calls or otherwise without modification,processing, or other intervention by the information management system100.

Secondary copies 116 are also often stored on a secondary storage device108 that is inaccessible to the applications 110 running on the clientcomputing devices 102 (and/or hosted services). Some secondary copies116 may be “offline copies,” in that they are not readily available(e.g. not mounted to tape or disk). Offline copies can include copies ofdata that the information management system 100 can access without humanintervention (e.g. tapes within an automated tape library, but not yetmounted in a drive), and copies that the information management system100 can access only with at least some human intervention (e.g. tapeslocated at an offsite storage site).

The secondary storage devices 108 can include any suitable type ofstorage device such as, without limitation, one or more tape libraries,disk drives or other magnetic, non-tape storage devices, optical mediastorage devices, solid state storage devices, NAS devices, combinationsof the same, and the like. In some cases, the secondary storage devices108 are provided in a cloud (e.g. a private cloud or one operated by athird-party vendor).

The secondary storage device(s) 108 in some cases comprises a disk arrayor a portion thereof. In some cases, a single storage device (e.g., adisk array) is used for storing both primary data 112 and at least somesecondary copies 116. In one example, a disk array capable of performinghardware snapshots stores primary data 112 and creates and storeshardware snapshots of the primary data 112 as secondary copies 116.

The Use of Intermediary Devices for Creating Secondary Copies

Creating secondary copies can be a challenging task. For instance, therecan be hundreds or thousands of client computing devices 102 continuallygenerating large volumes of primary data 112 to be protected. Also,there can be significant overhead involved in the creation of secondarycopies 116. Moreover, secondary storage devices 108 may be specialpurpose components, and interacting with them can require specializedintelligence.

In some cases, the client computing devices 102 interact directly withthe secondary storage device 108 to create the secondary copies 116.However, in view of the factors described above, this approach cannegatively impact the ability of the client computing devices 102 toserve the applications 110 and produce primary data 112. Further, theclient computing devices 102 may not be optimized for interaction withthe secondary storage devices 108.

Thus, in some embodiments, the information management system 100includes one or more software and/or hardware components which generallyact as intermediaries between the client computing devices 102 and thesecondary storage devices 108. In addition to off-loading certainresponsibilities from the client computing devices 102, theseintermediary components can provide other benefits. For instance, asdiscussed further below with respect to FIG. 1D, distributing some ofthe work involved in creating secondary copies 116 can enhancescalability.

The intermediary components can include one or more secondary storagecomputing devices 106 as shown in FIG. 1A and/or one or more mediaagents, which can be software modules residing on correspondingsecondary storage computing devices 106 (or other appropriate devices).Media agents are discussed below (e.g., with respect to FIGS. 1C-1E).

The secondary storage computing device(s) 106 can comprise anyappropriate type of computing device and can include, withoutlimitation, any of the types of fixed and portable computing devicesdescribed above with respect to the client computing devices 102. Insome cases, the secondary storage computing device(s) 106 includespecialized hardware and/or software componentry for interacting withthe secondary storage devices 108.

To create a secondary copy 116, the client computing device 102communicates the primary data 112 to be copied (or a processed versionthereof) to the designated secondary storage computing device 106, viathe communication pathway 114. The secondary storage computing device106 in turn conveys the received data (or a processed version thereof)to the secondary storage device 108. In some such configurations, thecommunication pathway 114 between the client computing device 102 andthe secondary storage computing device 106 comprises a portion of a LAN,WAN or SAN. In other cases, at least some client computing devices 102communicate directly with the secondary storage devices 108 (e.g., viaFibre Channel or SCSI connections).

Exemplary Primary Data and an Exemplary Secondary Copy

FIG. 1B is a detailed view showing some specific examples of primarydata stored on the primary storage device(s) 104 and secondary copy datastored on the secondary storage device(s) 108, with other components inthe system removed for the purposes of illustration. Stored on theprimary storage device(s) 104 are primary data objects including wordprocessing documents 119A-B, spreadsheets 120, presentation documents122, video files 124, image files 126, email mailboxes 128 (andcorresponding email messages 129A-C), html/xml or other types of markuplanguage files 130, databases 132 and corresponding tables 133A-133C).

Some or all primary data objects are associated with a primary copy ofobject metadata (e.g., “Meta1-11”), which may be file system metadataand/or application specific metadata. Stored on the secondary storagedevice(s) 108 are secondary copy objects 134A-C which may include copiesof or otherwise represent corresponding primary data objects andmetadata.

As shown, the secondary copy objects 134A-C can individually representmore than one primary data object. For example, secondary copy dataobject 134A represents three separate primary data objects 133C, 122 and129C (represented as 133C′, 122′ and 129C′, respectively). Moreover, asindicated by the prime mark (′), a secondary copy object may store arepresentation of a primary data object or metadata differently than theoriginal format, e.g., in a compressed, encrypted, deduplicated, orother modified format.

Exemplary Information Management System Architecture

The information management system 100 can incorporate a variety ofdifferent hardware and software components, which can in turn beorganized with respect to one another in many different configurations,depending on the embodiment. There are critical design choices involvedin specifying the functional responsibilities of the components and therole of each component in the information management system 100. Forinstance, as will be discussed, such design choices can impactperformance as well as the adaptability of the information managementsystem 100 to data growth or other changing circumstances.

FIG. 1C shows an information management system 100 designed according tothese considerations and which includes: a central storage orinformation manager 140 configured to perform certain control functions,one or more data agents 142 executing on the client computing device(s)102 configured to process primary data 112, and one or more media agents144 executing on the one or more secondary storage computing devices 106for performing tasks involving the secondary storage devices 108.

Storage Manager

As noted, the number of components in the information management system100 and the amount of data under management can be quite large. Managingthe components and data is therefore a significant task, and a task thatcan grow in an often unpredictable fashion as the quantity of componentsand data scale to meet the needs of the organization.

For these and other reasons, according to certain embodiments,responsibility for controlling the information management system 100, orat least a significant portion of that responsibility, is allocated tothe storage manager 140.

By distributing control functionality in this manner, the storagemanager 140 can be adapted independently according to changingcircumstances. Moreover, a host computing device can be selected to bestsuit the functions of the storage manager 140. These and otheradvantages are described in further detail below with respect to FIG.1D.

The storage manager 140 may be a software module or other application.The storage manager generally initiates, coordinates and/or controlsstorage and other information management operations performed by theinformation management system 100, e.g., to protect and control theprimary data 112 and secondary copies 116 of data and metadata.

As shown by the dashed, arrowed lines, the storage manager 140 maycommunicate with and/or control some or all elements of the informationmanagement system 100, such as the data agents 142 and media agents 144.Thus, in certain embodiments, control information originates from thestorage manager 140, whereas payload data and metadata is generallycommunicated between the data agents 142 and the media agents 144 (orotherwise between the client computing device(s) 102 and the secondarystorage computing device(s) 106), e.g., at the direction of the storagemanager 140. In other embodiments, some information managementoperations are controlled by other components in the informationmanagement system 100 (e.g., the media agent(s) 144 or data agent(s)142), instead of or in combination with the storage manager 140.

According to certain embodiments, the storage manager provides one ormore of the following functions:

-   -   initiating execution of secondary copy operations;    -   managing secondary storage devices 108 and inventory/capacity of        the same;    -   allocating secondary storage devices 108 for secondary storage        operations;    -   monitoring completion of and providing status reporting related        to secondary storage operations;    -   tracking age information relating to secondary copies 116,        secondary storage devices 108, and comparing the age information        against retention guidelines;    -   tracking movement of data within the information management        system 100;    -   tracking logical associations between components in the        information management system 100;    -   protecting metadata associated with the information management        system 100; and    -   implementing operations management functionality.

The storage manager 140 may maintain a database 146 ofmanagement-related data and information management policies 148. Thedatabase 146 may include a management index 150 or other data structurethat stores logical associations between components of the system, userpreferences and/or profiles (e.g., preferences regarding encryption,compression, or deduplication of primary or secondary copy data,preferences regarding the scheduling, type, or other aspects of primaryor secondary copy or other operations, mappings of particularinformation management users or user accounts to certain computingdevices or other components, etc.), management tasks, mediacontainerization, or other useful data. For example, the storage manager140 may use the index 150 to track logical associations between mediaagents 144 and secondary storage devices 108 and/or movement of datafrom primary storage devices 104 to secondary storage devices 108.

Administrators and other employees may be able to manually configure andinitiate certain information management operations on an individualbasis. But while this may be acceptable for some recovery operations orother relatively less frequent tasks, it is often not workable forimplementing on-going organization-wide data protection and management.

Thus, the information management system 100 may utilize informationmanagement policies 148 for specifying and executing informationmanagement operations (e.g., on an automated basis). Generally, aninformation management policy 148 can include a data structure or otherinformation source that specifies a set of parameters (e.g., criteriaand rules) associated with storage or other information managementoperations.

The storage manager database 146 may maintain the information managementpolicies 148 and associated data, although the information managementpolicies 148 can be stored in any appropriate location. For instance, astorage policy may be stored as metadata in a media agent database 152or in a secondary storage device 108 (e.g., as an archive copy) for usein restore operations or other information management operations,depending on the embodiment. Information management policies 148 aredescribed further below.

According to certain embodiments, the storage manager database 146comprises a relational database (e.g., an SQL database) for trackingmetadata, such as metadata associated with secondary copy operations(e.g., what client computing devices 102 and corresponding data wereprotected). This and other metadata may additionally be stored in otherlocations, such as at the secondary storage computing devices 106 or onthe secondary storage devices 108, allowing data recovery without theuse of the storage manager 140.

As shown, the storage manager 140 may include a jobs agent 156, a userinterface 158, and a management agent 154, all of which may beimplemented as interconnected software modules or application programs.

The jobs agent 156 in some embodiments initiates, controls, and/ormonitors the status of some or all storage or other informationmanagement operations previously performed, currently being performed,or scheduled to be performed by the information management system 100.For instance, the jobs agent 156 may access information managementpolicies 148 to determine when and how to initiate and control secondarycopy and other information management operations, as will be discussedfurther.

The user interface 158 may include information processing and displaysoftware, such as a graphical user interface (“GUI”), an applicationprogram interface (“API”), or other interactive interface through whichusers and system processes can retrieve information about the status ofinformation management operations (e.g., storage operations) or issueinstructions to the information management system 100 and itsconstituent components.

The storage manager 140 may also track information that permits it toselect, designate, or otherwise identify content indices, deduplicationdatabases, or similar databases or resources or data sets within itsinformation management cell (or another cell) to be searched in responseto certain queries. Such queries may be entered by the user viainteraction with the user interface 158.

Via the user interface 158, users may optionally issue instructions tothe components in the information management system 100 regardingperformance of storage and recovery operations. For example, a user maymodify a schedule concerning the number of pending secondary copyoperations. As another example, a user may employ the GUI to view thestatus of pending storage operations or to monitor the status of certaincomponents in the information management system 100 (e.g., the amount ofcapacity left in a storage device).

In general, the management agent 154 allows multiple informationmanagement systems 100 to communicate with one another. For example, theinformation management system 100 in some cases may be one informationmanagement subsystem or “cell” of a network of multiple cells adjacentto one another or otherwise logically related in a WAN or LAN. With thisarrangement, the cells may be connected to one another throughrespective management agents 154.

For instance, the management agent 154 can provide the storage manager140 with the ability to communicate with other components within theinformation management system 100 (and/or other cells within a largerinformation management system) via network protocols and applicationprogramming interfaces (“APIs”) including, e.g., HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, REST,virtualization software APIs, cloud service provider APIs, and hostedservice provider APIs. Inter-cell communication and hierarchy isdescribed in greater detail in U.S. Pat. No. 7,035,880, which isincorporated by reference herein.

Data Agents

As discussed, a variety of different types of applications 110 canreside on a given client computing device 102, including operatingsystems, database applications, e-mail applications, and virtualmachines, just to name a few. And, as part of the as part of the processof creating and restoring secondary copies 116, the client computingdevices 102 may be tasked with processing and preparing the primary data112 from these various different applications 110. Moreover, the natureof the processing/preparation can differ across clients and applicationtypes, e.g., due to inherent structural and formatting differencesbetween applications 110.

The one or more data agent(s) 142 are therefore advantageouslyconfigured in some embodiments to assist in the performance ofinformation management operations based on the type of data that isbeing protected, at a client-specific and/or application-specific level.

The data agent 142 may be a software module or component that isgenerally responsible for managing, initiating, or otherwise assistingin the performance of information management operations. For instance,the data agent 142 may take part in performing data storage operationssuch as the copying, archiving, migrating, replicating of primary data112 stored in the primary storage device(s) 104. The data agent 142 mayreceive control information from the storage manager 140, such ascommands to transfer copies of data objects, metadata, and other payloaddata to the media agents 144.

In some embodiments, a data agent 142 may be distributed between theclient computing device 102 and storage manager 140 (and any otherintermediate components) or may be deployed from a remote location orits functions approximated by a remote process that performs some or allof the functions of data agent 142. In addition, a data agent 142 mayperform some functions provided by a media agent 144, e.g., encryptionand deduplication.

As indicated, each data agent 142 may be specialized for a particularapplication 110, and the system can employ multiple data agents 142,each of which may backup, migrate, and recover data associated with adifferent application 110. For instance, different individual dataagents 142 may be designed to handle Microsoft Exchange data, LotusNotes data, Microsoft Windows file system data, Microsoft ActiveDirectory Objects data, SQL Server data, SharePoint data, Oracledatabase data, SAP database data, virtual machines and/or associateddata, and other types of data.

A file system data agent, for example, may handle data files and/orother file system information. If a client computing device 102 has twoor more types of data, one data agent 142 may be used for each data typeto copy, archive, migrate, and restore the client computing device 102data. For example, to backup, migrate, and restore all of the data on aMicrosoft Exchange server, the client computing device 102 may use oneMicrosoft Exchange Mailbox data agent 142 to backup the Exchangemailboxes, one Microsoft Exchange Database data agent 142 to backup theExchange databases, one Microsoft Exchange Public Folder data agent 142to backup the Exchange Public Folders, and one Microsoft Windows FileSystem data agent 142 to backup the file system of the client computingdevice 102. In such embodiments, these data agents 142 may be treated asfour separate data agents 142 even though they reside on the same clientcomputing device 102.

Other embodiments may employ one or more generic data agents 142 thatcan handle and process data from two or more different applications 110,or that can handle and process multiple data types, instead of or inaddition to using specialized data agents 142. For example, one genericdata agent 142 may be used to back up, migrate and restore MicrosoftExchange Mailbox data and Microsoft Exchange Database data while anothergeneric data agent may handle Microsoft Exchange Public Folder data andMicrosoft Windows File System data.

Each data agent 142 may be configured to access data and/or metadatastored in the primary storage device(s) 104 associated with the dataagent 142 and process the data as appropriate. For example, during asecondary copy operation, the data agent 142 may arrange or assemble thedata and metadata into one or more files having a certain format (e.g.,a particular backup or archive format) before transferring the file(s)to a media agent 144 or other component. The file(s) may include a listof files or other metadata. Each data agent 142 can also assist inrestoring data or metadata to primary storage devices 104 from asecondary copy 116. For instance, the data agent 142 may operate inconjunction with the storage manager 140 and one or more of the mediaagents 144 to restore data from secondary storage device(s) 108.

Media Agents

As indicated above with respect to FIG. 1A, off-loading certainresponsibilities from the client computing devices 102 to intermediarycomponents such as the media agent(s) 144 can provide a number ofbenefits including improved client computing device 102 operation,faster secondary copy operation performance, and enhanced scalability.As one specific example which will be discussed below in further detail,the media agent 144 can act as a local cache of copied data and/ormetadata that it has stored to the secondary storage device(s) 108,providing improved restore capabilities.

Generally speaking, a media agent 144 may be implemented as a softwaremodule that manages, coordinates, and facilitates the transmission ofdata, as directed by the storage manager 140, between a client computingdevice 102 and one or more secondary storage devices 108. Whereas thestorage manager 140 controls the operation of the information managementsystem 100, the media agent 144 generally provides a portal to secondarystorage devices 108.

Media agents 144 can comprise logically and/or physically separate nodesin the information management system 100 (e.g., separate from the clientcomputing devices 102, storage manager 140, and/or secondary storagedevices 108). In addition, each media agent 144 may reside on adedicated secondary storage computing device 106 in some cases, while inother embodiments a plurality of media agents 144 reside on the samesecondary storage computing device 106.

A media agent 144 (and corresponding media agent database 152) may beconsidered to be “associated with” a particular secondary storage device108 if that media agent 144 is capable of one or more of: routing and/orstoring data to the particular secondary storage device 108,coordinating the routing and/or storing of data to the particularsecondary storage device 108, retrieving data from the particularsecondary storage device 108, and coordinating the retrieval of datafrom a particular secondary storage device 108.

While media agent(s) 144 are generally associated with one or moresecondary storage devices 108, the media agents 144 in certainembodiments are physically separate from the secondary storage devices108. For instance, the media agents 144 may reside on secondary storagecomputing devices 106 having different housings or packages than thesecondary storage devices 108. In one example, a media agent 144 resideson a first server computer and is in communication with a secondarystorage device(s) 108 residing in a separate, rack-mounted RAID-basedsystem.

In operation, a media agent 144 associated with a particular secondarystorage device 108 may instruct the secondary storage device 108 (e.g.,a tape library) to use a robotic arm or other retrieval means to load oreject a certain storage media, and to subsequently archive, migrate, orretrieve data to or from that media, e.g., for the purpose of restoringthe data to a client computing device 102. The media agent 144 maycommunicate with a secondary storage device 108 via a suitablecommunications link, such as a SCSI or Fiber Channel link.

As shown, each media agent 144 may maintain an associated media agentdatabase 152. The media agent database 152 may be stored in a disk orother storage device (not shown) that is local to the secondary storagecomputing device 106 on which the media agent 144 resides. In othercases, the media agent database 152 is stored remotely from thesecondary storage computing device 106.

The media agent database 152 can include, among other things, an index153 including data generated during secondary copy operations and otherstorage or information management operations. The index 153 provides amedia agent 144 or other component with a fast and efficient mechanismfor locating secondary copies 116 or other data stored in the secondarystorage devices 108. In one configuration, a storage manager index 150or other data structure may store data associating a client computingdevice 102 with a particular media agent 144 and/or secondary storagedevice 108, as specified in a storage policy. A media agent index 153 orother data structure associated with the particular media agent 144 mayin turn include information about the stored data.

For instance, for each secondary copy 116, the index 153 may includemetadata such as a list of the data objects (e.g., files/subdirectories,database objects, mailbox objects, etc.), a path to the secondary copy116 on the corresponding secondary storage device 108, locationinformation indicating where the data objects are stored in thesecondary storage device 108, when the data objects were created ormodified, etc. Thus, the index 153 includes metadata associated with thesecondary copies 116 that is readily available for use in storageoperations and other activities without having to be first retrievedfrom the secondary storage device 108. In yet further embodiments, someor all of the data in the index 153 may instead or additionally bestored along with the data in a secondary storage device 108, e.g., witha copy of the index 153.

Because the index 153 maintained in the database 152 may operate as acache, it can also be referred to as an index cache. In such cases,information stored in the index cache 153 typically comprises data thatreflects certain particulars about storage operations that have occurredrelatively recently. After some triggering event, such as after acertain period of time elapses, or the index cache 153 reaches aparticular size, the index cache 153 may be copied or migrated to asecondary storage device(s) 108. This information may need to beretrieved and uploaded back into the index cache 153 or otherwiserestored to a media agent 144 to facilitate retrieval of data from thesecondary storage device(s) 108. In some embodiments, the cachedinformation may include format or containerization information relatedto archives or other files stored on the storage device(s) 108. In thismanner, the index cache 153 allows for accelerated restores.

In some alternative embodiments the media agent 144 generally acts as acoordinator or facilitator of storage operations between clientcomputing devices 102 and corresponding secondary storage devices 108,but does not actually write the data to the secondary storage device108. For instance, the storage manager 140 (or the media agent 144) mayinstruct a client computing device 102 and secondary storage device 108to communicate with one another directly. In such a case the clientcomputing device 102 transmits the data directly to the secondarystorage device 108 according to the received instructions, and viceversa. In some such cases, the media agent 144 may still receive,process, and/or maintain metadata related to the storage operations.Moreover, in these embodiments, the payload data can flow through themedia agent 144 for the purposes of populating the index cache 153maintained in the media agent database 152, but not for writing to thesecondary storage device 108.

The media agent 144 and/or other components such as the storage manager140 may in some cases incorporate additional functionality, such as dataclassification, content indexing, deduplication, encryption,compression, and the like. Further details regarding these and otherfunctions are described below.

Distributed, Scalable Architecture

As described, certain functions of the information management system 100can be distributed amongst various physical and/or logical components inthe system. For instance, one or more of the storage manager 140, dataagents 142, and media agents 144 may reside on computing devices thatare physically separate from one another. This architecture can providea number of benefits.

For instance, hardware and software design choices for each distributedcomponent can be targeted to suit its particular function. The secondarycomputing devices 106 on which the media agents 144 reside can betailored for interaction with associated secondary storage devices 108and provide fast index cache operation, among other specific tasks.Similarly, the client computing device(s) 102 can be selected toeffectively service the applications 110 residing thereon, in order toefficiently produce and store primary data 112.

Moreover, in some cases, one or more of the individual components in theinformation management system 100 can be distributed to multiple,separate computing devices. As one example, for large file systems wherethe amount of data stored in the storage management database 146 isrelatively large, the management database 146 may be migrated to orotherwise reside on a specialized database server (e.g., an SQL server)separate from a server that implements the other functions of thestorage manager 140. This configuration can provide added protectionbecause the database 146 can be protected with standard databaseutilities (e.g., SQL log shipping or database replication) independentfrom other functions of the storage manager 140. The database 146 can beefficiently replicated to a remote site for use in the event of adisaster or other data loss incident at the primary site. Or thedatabase 146 can be replicated to another computing device within thesame site, such as to a higher performance machine in the event that astorage manager host device can no longer service the needs of a growinginformation management system 100.

The distributed architecture also provides both scalability andefficient component utilization. FIG. 1D shows an embodiment of theinformation management system 100 including a plurality of clientcomputing devices 102 and associated data agents 142 as well as aplurality of secondary storage computing devices 106 and associatedmedia agents 144.

Additional components can be added or subtracted based on the evolvingneeds of the information management system 100. For instance, dependingon where bottlenecks are identified, administrators can add additionalclient computing devices 102, secondary storage devices 106 (andcorresponding media agents 144), and/or secondary storage devices 108.

Moreover, each client computing device 102 in some embodiments cancommunicate with any of the media agents 144, e.g., as directed by thestorage manager 140. And each media agent 144 may be able to communicatewith any of the secondary storage devices 108, e.g., as directed by thestorage manager 140. Thus, operations can be routed to the secondarystorage devices 108 in a dynamic and highly flexible manner. Furtherexamples of scalable systems capable of dynamic storage operations areprovided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,246,207, which is incorporated by referenceherein.

In alternative configurations, certain components are not distributedand may instead reside and execute on the same computing device. Forexample, in some embodiments one or more data agents 142 and the storagemanager 140 reside on the same client computing device 102. In anotherembodiment, one or more data agents 142 and one or more media agents 144reside on a single computing device.

Exemplary Types of Information Management Operations

In order to protect and leverage stored data, the information managementsystem 100 can be configured to perform a variety of informationmanagement operations. As will be described, these operations cangenerally include secondary copy and other data movement operations,processing and data manipulation operations, and management operations.

Data Movement Operations

Data movement operations according to certain embodiments are generallyoperations that involve the copying or migration of data (e.g., payloaddata) between different locations in the information management system100. For example, data movement operations can include operations inwhich stored data is copied, migrated, or otherwise transferred fromprimary storage device(s) 104 to secondary storage device(s) 108, fromsecondary storage device(s) 108 to different secondary storage device(s)108, or from primary storage device(s) 104 to different primary storagedevice(s) 104.

Data movement operations can include by way of example, backupoperations, archive operations, information lifecycle managementoperations such as hierarchical storage management operations,replication operations (e.g., continuous data replication operations),snapshot operations, deduplication operations, single-instancingoperations, auxiliary copy operations, and the like. As will bediscussed, some of these operations involve the copying, migration orother movement of data, without actually creating multiple, distinctcopies. Nonetheless, some or all of these operations are referred to as“copy” operations for simplicity.

Backup Operations

A backup operation creates a copy of primary data 112 at a particularpoint in time. Each subsequent backup copy may be maintainedindependently of the first. Further, a backup copy in some embodimentsis stored in a backup format. This can be in contrast to the version inprimary data 112 from which the backup copy is derived, and which mayinstead be stored in a native format of the source application(s) 110.In various cases, backup copies can be stored in a format in which thedata is compressed, encrypted, deduplicated, and/or otherwise modifiedfrom the original application format. For example, a backup copy may bestored in a backup format that facilitates compression and/or efficientlong-term storage.

Backup copies can have relatively long retention periods as compared toprimary data 112, and may be stored on media with slower retrieval timesthan primary data 112 and certain other types of secondary copies 116.On the other hand, backups may have relatively shorter retention periodsthan some other types of secondary copies 116, such as archive copies(described below). Backups may sometimes be stored at on offsitelocation.

Backup operations can include full, synthetic or incremental backups. Afull backup in some embodiments is generally a complete image of thedata to be protected. However, because full backup copies can consume arelatively large amount of storage, it can be useful to use a fullbackup copy as a baseline and only store changes relative to the fullbackup copy for subsequent backup copies.

For instance, a differential backup operation (or cumulative incrementalbackup operation) tracks and stores changes that have occurred since thelast full backup. Differential backups can grow quickly in size, but canprovide relatively efficient restore times because a restore can becompleted in some cases using only the full backup copy and the latestdifferential copy.

An incremental backup operation generally tracks and stores changessince the most recent backup copy of any type, which can greatly reducestorage utilization. In some cases, however, restore times can berelatively long in comparison to full or differential backups becausecompleting a restore operation may involve accessing a full backup inaddition to multiple incremental backups.

Any of the above types of backup operations can be at the file-level,e.g., where the information management system 100 generally trackschanges to files at the file-level, and includes copies of files in thebackup copy. In other cases, block-level backups are employed, wherefiles are broken into constituent blocks, and changes are tracked at theblock-level. Upon restore, the information management system 100reassembles the blocks into files in a transparent fashion.

Far less data may actually be transferred and copied to the secondarystorage devices 108 during a block-level copy than during a file-levelcopy, resulting in faster execution times. However, when restoring ablock-level copy, the process of locating constituent blocks cansometimes result in longer restore times as compared to file-levelbackups. Similar to backup operations, the other types of secondary copyoperations described herein can also be implemented at either thefile-level or the block-level.

Archive Operations

Because backup operations generally involve maintaining a version of thecopied data in primary data 112 and also maintaining backup copies insecondary storage device(s) 108, they can consume significant storagecapacity. To help reduce storage consumption, an archive operationaccording to certain embodiments creates a secondary copy 116 by bothcopying and removing source data. Or, seen another way, archiveoperations can involve moving some or all of the source data to thearchive destination. Thus, data satisfying criteria for removal (e.g.,data of a threshold age or size) from the source copy may be removedfrom source storage. Archive copies are sometimes stored in an archiveformat or other non-native application format. The source data may beprimary data 112 or a secondary copy 116, depending on the situation. Aswith backup copies, archive copies can be stored in a format in whichthe data is compressed, encrypted, deduplicated, and/or otherwisemodified from the original application format.

In addition, archive copies may be retained for relatively long periodsof time (e.g., years) and, in some cases, are never deleted. Archivecopies are generally retained for longer periods of time than backupcopies, for example. In certain embodiments, archive copies may be madeand kept for extended periods in order to meet compliance regulations.

Moreover, when primary data 112 is archived, in some cases the archivedprimary data 112 or a portion thereof is deleted when creating thearchive copy. Thus, archiving can serve the purpose of freeing up spacein the primary storage device(s) 104. Similarly, when a secondary copy116 is archived, the secondary copy 116 may be deleted, and an archivecopy can therefore serve the purpose of freeing up space in secondarystorage device(s) 108. In contrast, source copies often remain intactwhen creating backup copies.

Snapshot Operations

Snapshot operations can provide a relatively lightweight, efficientmechanism for protecting data. From an end-user viewpoint, a snapshotmay be thought of as an “instant” image of the primary data 112 at agiven point in time. In one embodiment, a snapshot may generally capturethe directory structure of an object in primary data 112 such as a fileor volume or other data set at a particular moment in time and may alsopreserve file attributes and contents. A snapshot in some cases iscreated relatively quickly, e.g., substantially instantly, using aminimum amount of file space, but may still function as a conventionalfile system backup.

A snapshot copy in many cases can be made quickly and withoutsignificantly impacting primary computing resources because largeamounts of data need not be copied or moved. In some embodiments, asnapshot may exist as a virtual file system, parallel to the actual filesystem. Users in some cases gain read-only access to the record of filesand directories of the snapshot. By electing to restore primary data 112from a snapshot taken at a given point in time, users may also returnthe current file system to the state of the file system that existedwhen the snapshot was taken.

Some types of snapshots do not actually create another physical copy ofall the data as it existed at the particular point in time, but maysimply create pointers that are able to map files and directories tospecific memory locations (e.g., disk blocks) where the data resides, asit existed at the particular point in time. For example, a snapshot copymay include a set of pointers derived from the file system or anapplication. Each pointer points to a respective stored data block, socollectively, the set of pointers reflect the storage location and stateof the data object (e.g., file(s) or volume(s) or data set(s)) at aparticular point in time when the snapshot copy was created.

In some embodiments, once a snapshot has been taken, subsequent changesto the file system typically do not overwrite the blocks in use at thetime of the snapshot. Therefore, the initial snapshot may use only asmall amount of disk space needed to record a mapping or other datastructure representing or otherwise tracking the blocks that correspondto the current state of the file system. Additional disk space isusually required only when files and directories are actually modifiedlater. Furthermore, when files are modified, typically only the pointerswhich map to blocks are copied, not the blocks themselves. In someembodiments, for example in the case of “copy-on-write” snapshots, whena block changes in primary storage, the block is copied to secondarystorage or cached in primary storage before the block is overwritten inprimary storage. The snapshot mapping of file system data is alsoupdated to reflect the changed block(s) at that particular point intime. In some other cases, a snapshot includes a full physical copy ofall or substantially all of the data represented by the snapshot.Further examples of snapshot operations are provided in U.S. Pat. No.7,529,782, which is incorporated by reference herein.

Replication Operations

Another type of secondary copy operation is a replication operation.Some types of secondary copies 116 are used to periodically captureimages of primary data 112 at particular points in time (e.g., backups,archives, and snapshots). However, it can also be useful for recoverypurposes to protect primary data 112 in a more continuous fashion, byreplicating the primary data 112 substantially as changes occur. In somecases a replication copy can be a mirror copy, for instance, wherechanges made to primary data 112 are mirrored to another location (e.g.,to secondary storage device(s) 108). By copying each write operation tothe replication copy, two storage systems are kept synchronized orsubstantially synchronized so that they are virtually identical atapproximately the same time. Where entire disk volumes are mirrored,however, mirroring can require significant amount of storage space andutilizes a large amount of processing resources.

According to some embodiments storage operations are performed onreplicated data that represents a recoverable state, or “known goodstate” of a particular application running on the source system. Forinstance, in certain embodiments, known good replication copies may beviewed as copies of primary data 112. This feature allows the system todirectly access, copy, restore, backup or otherwise manipulate thereplication copies as if the data was the “live”, primary data 112. Thiscan reduce access time, storage utilization, and impact on sourceapplications 110, among other benefits.

Based on known good state information, the information management system100 can replicate sections of application data that represent arecoverable state rather than rote copying of blocks of data. Examplesof compatible replication operations (e.g., continuous data replication)are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,617,262, which is incorporated byreference herein.

Deduplication/Single-Instancing Operations

Another type of data movement operation is deduplication, which isuseful to reduce the amount of data within the system. For instance,some or all of the above-described secondary storage operations caninvolve deduplication in some fashion. New data is read, broken downinto blocks (e.g., sub-file level blocks) of a selected granularity,compared with blocks that are already stored, and only the new blocksare stored. Blocks that already exist are represented as pointers to thealready stored data.

In order to stream-line the comparison process, the informationmanagement system 100 may calculate and/or store signatures (e.g.,hashes) corresponding to the individual data blocks and compare thehashes instead of comparing entire data blocks. In some cases, only asingle instance of each element is stored, and deduplication operationsmay therefore be referred to interchangeably as “single-instancing”operations. Depending on the implementation, however, deduplication orsingle-instancing operations can store more than one instance of certaindata blocks, but nonetheless significantly reduce data redundancy.Moreover, single-instancing in some cases is distinguished fromdeduplication as a process of analyzing and reducing data at the filelevel, rather than the sub-file level.

Depending on the embodiment, deduplication blocks can be of fixed orvariable length. Using variable length blocks can provide enhanceddeduplication by responding to changes in the data stream, but caninvolve complex processing. In some cases, the information managementsystem 100 utilizes a technique for dynamically aligning deduplicationblocks (e.g., fixed-length blocks) based on changing content in the datastream, as described in U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2012/0084269, which isincorporated by reference herein.

The information management system 100 can perform deduplication in avariety of manners at a variety of locations in the informationmanagement system 100. For instance, in some embodiments, theinformation management system 100 implements “target-side” deduplicationby deduplicating data (e.g., secondary copies 116) stored in thesecondary storage devices 108. In some such cases, the media agents 144are generally configured to manage the deduplication process. Forinstance, one or more of the media agents 144 maintain a correspondingdeduplication database that stores deduplication information (e.g.,datablock signatures). Examples of such a configuration are provided inU.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2012/0150826, which is incorporated by referenceherein. Deduplication can also be performed on the “source-side” (or“client-side”), e.g., to reduce the amount of traffic between the mediaagents 144 and the client computing device(s) 102 and/or reduceredundant data stored in the primary storage devices 104. Examples ofsuch deduplication techniques are provided in U.S. Pat. Pub. No.2012/0150818, which is incorporated by reference herein.

Information Lifecycle Management and Hierarchical Storage ManagementOperations

In some embodiments, files and other data over their lifetime move frommore expensive, quick access storage to less expensive, slower accessstorage. Operations associated with moving data through various tiers ofstorage are sometimes referred to as information lifecycle management(ILM) operations.

One type of ILM operation is a hierarchical storage management (HSM)operation. A HSM operation is generally an operation for automaticallymoving data between classes of storage devices, such as betweenhigh-cost and low-cost storage devices. For instance, an HSM operationmay involve movement of data from primary storage devices 104 tosecondary storage devices 108, or between tiers of secondary storagedevices 108. With each tier, the storage devices may be progressivelyrelatively cheaper, have relatively slower access/restore times, etc.For example, movement of data between tiers may occur as data becomesless important over time.

In some embodiments, an HSM operation is similar to an archive operationin that creating an HSM copy may (though not always) involve deletingsome of the source data. For example, an HSM copy may include data fromprimary data 112 or a secondary copy 116 that is larger than a givensize threshold or older than a given age threshold and that is stored ina backup format.

Often, and unlike some types of archive copies, HSM data that is removedor aged from the source copy is replaced by a logical reference pointeror stub. The reference pointer or stub can be stored in the primarystorage device 104 to replace the deleted data in primary data 112 (orother source copy) and to point to or otherwise indicate the newlocation in a secondary storage device 108.

According to one example, files are generally moved between higher andlower cost storage depending on how often the files are accessed. When auser requests access to the HSM data that has been removed or migrated,the information management system 100 uses the stub to locate the dataand often make recovery of the data appear transparent, even though theHSM data may be stored at a location different from the remaining sourcedata. The stub may also include some metadata associated with thecorresponding data, so that a file system and/or application can providesome information about the data object and/or a limited-functionalityversion (e.g., a preview) of the data object.

An HSM copy may be stored in a format other than the native applicationformat (e.g., where the data is compressed, encrypted, deduplicated,and/or otherwise modified from the original application format). In somecases, copies which involve the removal of data from source storage andthe maintenance of stub or other logical reference information on sourcestorage may be referred to generally as “on-line archive copies”. On theother hand, copies which involve the removal of data from source storagewithout the maintenance of stub or other logical reference informationon source storage may be referred to as “off-line archive copies”.

Auxiliary Copy and Disaster Recovery Operations

An auxiliary copy is generally a copy operation in which a copy iscreated of an existing secondary copy 116. For instance, an initial or“primary” secondary copy 116 may be generated using or otherwise bederived from primary data 112, whereas an auxiliary copy is generatedfrom the initial secondary copy 116. Auxiliary copies can be used tocreate additional standby copies of data and may reside on differentsecondary storage devices 108 than initial secondary copies 116. Thus,auxiliary copies can be used for recovery purposes if initial secondarycopies 116 become unavailable. Exemplary compatible auxiliary copytechniques are described in further detail in U.S. Pat. No. 8,230,195,which is incorporated by reference herein.

The information management system 100 may also perform disaster recoveryoperations that make or retain disaster recovery copies, often assecondary, high-availability disk copies. The information managementsystem 100 may create secondary disk copies and store the copies atdisaster recovery locations using auxiliary copy or replicationoperations, such as continuous data replication technologies. Dependingon the particular data protection goals, disaster recovery locations canbe remote from the client computing devices 102 and primary storagedevices 104, remote from some or all of the secondary storage devices108, or both.

Data Processing and Manipulation Operations

As indicated, the information management system 100 can also beconfigured to implement certain data manipulation operations, whichaccording to certain embodiments are generally operations involving theprocessing or modification of stored data. Some data manipulationoperations include content indexing operations and classificationoperations can be useful in leveraging the data under management toprovide enhanced search and other features. Other data manipulationoperations such as compression and encryption can provide data reductionand security benefits, respectively.

Data manipulation operations can be different than data movementoperations in that they do not necessarily involve the copying,migration or other transfer of data (e.g., primary data 112 or secondarycopies 116) between different locations in the system. For instance,data manipulation operations may involve processing (e.g., offlineprocessing) or modification of already stored primary data 112 and/orsecondary copies 116. However, in some embodiments data manipulationoperations are performed in conjunction with data movement operations.As one example, the information management system 100 may encrypt datawhile performing an archive operation.

Content Indexing

In some embodiments, the information management system 100 “contentindexes” data stored within the primary data 112 and/or secondary copies116, providing enhanced search capabilities for data discovery and otherpurposes. The content indexing can be used to identify files or otherdata objects having pre-defined content (e.g., user-defined keywords orphrases), metadata (e.g., email metadata such as “to”, “from”, “cc”,“bcc”, attachment name, received time, etc.).

The information management system 100 generally organizes and cataloguesthe results in a content index, which may be stored within the mediaagent database 152, for example. The content index can also include thestorage locations of (or pointer references to) the indexed data in theprimary data 112 or secondary copies 116, as appropriate. The resultsmay also be stored, in the form of a content index database orotherwise, elsewhere in the information management system 100 (e.g., inthe primary storage devices 104, or in the secondary storage device108). Such index data provides the storage manager 140 or anothercomponent with an efficient mechanism for locating primary data 112and/or secondary copies 116 of data objects that match particularcriteria.

For instance, search criteria can be specified by a user through userinterface 158 of the storage manager 140. In some cases, the informationmanagement system 100 analyzes data and/or metadata in secondary copies116 to create an “off-line” content index, without significantlyimpacting the performance of the client computing devices 102. Dependingon the embodiment, the system can also implement “on-line” contentindexing, e.g., of primary data 112. Examples of compatible contentindexing techniques are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 8,170,995, which isincorporated by reference herein.

Classification Operations—Metabase

In order to help leverage the data stored in the information managementsystem 100, one or more components can be configured to scan data and/orassociated metadata for classification purposes to populate a metabaseof information. Such scanned, classified data and/or metadata may beincluded in a separate database and/or on a separate storage device fromprimary data 112 (and/or secondary copies 116), such that metabaserelated operations do not significantly impact performance on othercomponents in the information management system 100.

In other cases, the metabase(s) may be stored along with primary data112 and/or secondary copies 116. Files or other data objects can beassociated with user-specified identifiers (e.g., tag entries) in themedia agent 144 (or other indices) to facilitate searches of stored dataobjects. Among a number of other benefits, the metabase can also allowefficient, automatic identification of files or other data objects toassociate with secondary copy or other information management operations(e.g., in lieu of scanning an entire file system). Examples ofcompatible metabases and data classification operations are provided inU.S. Pat. Nos. 8,229,954 and 7,747,579, which are incorporated byreference herein.

Encryption Operations

The information management system 100 in some cases is configured toprocess data (e.g., files or other data objects, secondary copies 116,etc.), according to an appropriate encryption algorithm (e.g., Blowfish,Advanced Encryption Standard [AES], Triple Data Encryption Standard[3-DES], etc.) to limit access and provide data security in theinformation management system 100.

The information management system 100 in some cases encrypts the data atthe client level, such that the client computing devices 102 (e.g., thedata agents 142) encrypt the data prior to forwarding the data to othercomponents, e.g., before sending the data media agents 144 during asecondary copy operation. In such cases, the client computing device 102may maintain or have access to an encryption key or passphrase fordecrypting the data upon restore. Encryption can also occur whencreating copies of secondary copies, e.g., when creating auxiliarycopies. In yet further embodiments, the secondary storage devices 108can implement built-in, high performance hardware encryption.

Management Operations

Certain embodiments leverage the integrated, ubiquitous nature of theinformation management system 100 to provide useful system-widemanagement functions. As two non-limiting examples, the informationmanagement system 100 can be configured to implement operationsmanagement and e-discovery functions.

Operations management can generally include monitoring and managing thehealth and performance of information management system 100 by, withoutlimitation, performing error tracking, generating granularstorage/performance metrics (e.g., job success/failure information,deduplication efficiency, etc.), generating storage modeling and costinginformation, and the like.

Such information can be provided to users via the user interface 158 ina single, integrated view. For instance, the integrated user interface158 can include an option to show a “virtual view” of the system thatgraphically depicts the various components in the system usingappropriate icons. The operations management functionality canfacilitate planning and decision-making. For example, in someembodiments, a user may view the status of some or all jobs as well asthe status of each component of the information management system 100.Users may then plan and make decisions based on this data. For instance,a user may view high-level information regarding storage operations forthe information management system 100, such as job status, componentstatus, resource status (e.g., network pathways, etc.), and otherinformation. The user may also drill down or use other means to obtainmore detailed information regarding a particular component, job, or thelike.

In some cases the information management system 100 alerts a user suchas a system administrator when a particular resource is unavailable orcongested. For example, a particular primary storage device 104 orsecondary storage device 108 might be full or require additionalcapacity. Or a component may be unavailable due to hardware failure,software problems, or other reasons. In response, the informationmanagement system 100 may suggest solutions to such problems when theyoccur (or provide a warning prior to occurrence). For example, thestorage manager 140 may alert the user that a secondary storage device108 is full or otherwise congested. The storage manager 140 may thensuggest, based on job and data storage information contained in itsdatabase 146, an alternate secondary storage device 108.

Other types of corrective actions may include suggesting an alternatedata path to a particular primary or secondary storage device 104, 108,or dividing data to be stored among various available primary orsecondary storage devices 104, 108 as a load balancing measure or tootherwise optimize storage or retrieval time. Such suggestions orcorrective actions may be performed automatically, if desired. Furtherexamples of some compatible operations management techniques and ofinterfaces providing an integrated view of an information managementsystem are provided in U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,453, which is incorporated byreference herein. In some embodiments, the storage manager 140implements the operations management functions described herein.

The information management system 100 can also be configured to performsystem-wide e-discovery operations in some embodiments. In general,e-discovery operations provide a unified collection and searchcapability for data in the system, such as data stored in the secondarystorage devices 108 (e.g., backups, archives, or other secondary copies116). For example, the information management system 100 may constructand maintain a virtual repository for data stored in the informationmanagement system 100 that is integrated across source applications 110,different storage device types, etc. According to some embodiments,e-discovery utilizes other techniques described herein, such as dataclassification and/or content indexing.

Information Management Policies

As indicated previously, an information management policy 148 caninclude a data structure or other information source that specifies aset of parameters (e.g., criteria and rules) associated with secondarycopy or other information management operations.

One type of information management policy 148 is a storage policy.According to certain embodiments, a storage policy generally comprises alogical container that defines (or includes information sufficient todetermine) one or more of the following items: (1) what data will beassociated with the storage policy; (2) a destination to which the datawill be stored; (3) datapath information specifying how the data will becommunicated to the destination; (4) the type of storage operation to beperformed; and (5) retention information specifying how long the datawill be retained at the destination.

Data associated with a storage policy can be logically organized intogroups, which can be referred to as “sub-clients”. A sub-client mayrepresent static or dynamic associations of portions of a data volume.Sub-clients may represent mutually exclusive portions. Thus, in certainembodiments, a portion of data may be given a label and the associationis stored as a static entity in an index, database or other storagelocation.

Sub-clients may also be used as an effective administrative scheme oforganizing data according to data type, department within theenterprise, storage preferences, or the like. Depending on theconfiguration, sub-clients can correspond to files, folders, virtualmachines, databases, etc. In one exemplary scenario, an administratormay find it preferable to separate e-mail data from financial data usingtwo different sub-clients.

A storage policy can define where data is stored by specifying a targetor destination storage device (or group of storage devices). Forinstance, where the secondary storage device 108 includes a group ofdisk libraries, the storage policy may specify a particular disk libraryfor storing the sub-clients associated with the policy. As anotherexample, where the secondary storage devices 108 include one or moretape libraries, the storage policy may specify a particular tape libraryfor storing the sub-clients associated with the storage policy, and mayalso specify a drive pool and a tape pool defining a group of tapedrives and a group of tapes, respectively, for use in storing thesub-client data.

Datapath information can also be included in the storage policy. Forinstance, the storage policy may specify network pathways and componentsto utilize when moving the data to the destination storage device(s). Insome embodiments, the storage policy specifies one or more media agents144 for conveying data (e.g., one or more sub-clients) associated withthe storage policy between the source (e.g., one or more host clientcomputing devices 102) and destination (e.g., a particular targetsecondary storage device 108).

A storage policy can also specify the type(s) of operations associatedwith the storage policy, such as a backup, archive, snapshot, auxiliarycopy, or the like. Retention information can specify how long the datawill be kept, depending on organizational needs (e.g., a number of days,months, years, etc.)

The information management policies 148 may also include one or morescheduling policies specifying when and how often to perform operations.Scheduling information may specify with what frequency (e.g., hourly,weekly, daily, event-based, etc.) or under what triggering conditionssecondary copy or other information management operations will takeplace. Scheduling policies in some cases are associated with particularcomponents, such as particular sub-clients, client computing device 102,and the like. In one configuration, a separate scheduling policy ismaintained for particular sub-clients on a client computing device 102.The scheduling policy specifies that those sub-clients are to be movedto secondary storage devices 108 every hour according to storagepolicies associated with the respective sub-clients.

When adding a new client computing device 102, administrators canmanually configure information management policies 148 and/or othersettings, e.g., via the user interface 158. However, this can be aninvolved process resulting in delays, and it may be desirable to begindata protecting operations quickly.

Thus, in some embodiments, the information management system 100automatically applies a default configuration to client computing device102. As one example, when a data agent(s) 142 is installed on a clientcomputing devices 102, the installation script may register the clientcomputing device 102 with the storage manager 140, which in turn appliesthe default configuration to the new client computing device 102. Inthis manner, data protection operations can begin substantiallyimmediately. The default configuration can include a default storagepolicy, for example, and can specify any appropriate informationsufficient to begin data protection operations. This can include a typeof data protection operation, scheduling information, a target secondarystorage device 108, data path information (e.g., a particular mediaagent 144), and the like.

Other types of information management policies 148 are possible. Forinstance, the information management policies 148 can also include oneor more audit or security policies. An audit policy is a set ofpreferences, rules and/or criteria that protect sensitive data in theinformation management system 100. For example, an audit policy maydefine “sensitive objects” as files or objects that contain particularkeywords (e.g. “confidential,” or “privileged”) and/or are associatedwith particular keywords (e.g., in metadata) or particular flags (e.g.,in metadata identifying a document or email as personal, confidential,etc.).

An audit policy may further specify rules for handling sensitiveobjects. As an example, an audit policy may require that a reviewerapprove the transfer of any sensitive objects to a cloud storage site,and that if approval is denied for a particular sensitive object, thesensitive object should be transferred to a local storage device 104instead. To facilitate this approval, the audit policy may furtherspecify how a secondary storage computing device 106 or other systemcomponent should notify a reviewer that a sensitive object is slated fortransfer.

In some implementations, the information management policies 148 mayinclude one or more provisioning policies. A provisioning policy caninclude a set of preferences, priorities, rules, and/or criteria thatspecify how clients 102 (or groups thereof) may utilize systemresources, such as available storage on cloud storage and/or networkbandwidth. A provisioning policy specifies, for example, data quotas forparticular client computing devices 102 (e.g. a number of gigabytes thatcan be stored monthly, quarterly or annually). The storage manager 140or other components may enforce the provisioning policy. For instance,the media agents 144 may enforce the policy when transferring data tosecondary storage devices 108. If a client computing device 102 exceedsa quota, a budget for the client computing device 102 (or associateddepartment) is adjusted accordingly or an alert may trigger.

While the above types of information management policies 148 have beendescribed as separate policies, one or more of these can be generallycombined into a single information management policy 148. For instance,a storage policy may also include or otherwise be associated with one ormore scheduling, audit, or provisioning policies. Moreover, whilestorage policies are typically associated with moving and storing data,other policies may be associated with other types of informationmanagement operations. The following is a non-exhaustive list of itemsthe information management policies 148 may specify:

-   -   schedules or other timing information, e.g., specifying when        and/or how often to perform information management operations;    -   the type of secondary copy 116 and/or secondary copy format        (e.g., snapshot, backup, archive, HSM, etc.);    -   a location or a class or quality of storage for storing        secondary copies 116 (e.g., one or more particular secondary        storage devices 108);    -   preferences regarding whether and how to encrypt, compress,        deduplicate, or otherwise modify or transform secondary copies        116;    -   which system components and/or network pathways (e.g., preferred        media agents 144) should be used to perform secondary storage        operations;    -   resource allocation between different computing devices or other        system components used in performing information management        operations (e.g., bandwidth allocation, available storage        capacity, etc.);    -   whether and how to synchronize or otherwise distribute files or        other data objects across multiple computing devices or hosted        services; and    -   retention information specifying the length of time primary data        112 and/or secondary copies 116 should be retained, e.g., in a        particular class or tier of storage devices, or within the        information management system 100.

Policies can additionally specify or depend on a variety of historicalor current criteria that may be used to determine which rules to applyto a particular data object, system component, or information managementoperation, such as:

-   -   frequency with which primary data 112 or a secondary copy 116 of        a data object or metadata has been or is predicted to be used,        accessed, or modified;    -   time-related factors (e.g., aging information such as time since        the creation or modification of a data object);    -   deduplication information (e.g., hashes, data blocks,        deduplication block size, deduplication efficiency or other        metrics);    -   an estimated or historic usage or cost associated with different        components (e.g., with secondary storage devices 108);    -   the identity of users, applications 110, client computing        devices 102 and/or other computing devices that created,        accessed, modified, or otherwise utilized primary data 112 or        secondary copies 116;    -   a relative sensitivity (e.g., confidentiality) of a data object,        e.g., as determined by its content and/or metadata;    -   the current or historical storage capacity of various storage        devices;    -   the current or historical network capacity of network pathways        connecting various components within the storage operation cell;    -   access control lists or other security information; and    -   the content of a particular data object (e.g., its textual        content) or of metadata associated with the data object.

Exemplary Storage Policy and Secondary Storage Operations

FIG. 1E shows a data flow data diagram depicting performance of storageoperations by an embodiment of an information management system 100,according to an exemplary data storage policy 148A. The informationmanagement system 100 includes a storage manger 140, a client computingdevice 102 having a file system data agent 142A and an email data agent142B residing thereon, a primary storage device 104, two media agents144A, 144B, and two secondary storage devices 108A, 108B: a disk library108A and a tape library 108B. As shown, the primary storage device 104includes primary data 112A, 112B associated with a file systemsub-client and an email sub-client, respectively.

As indicated by the dashed box, the second media agent 144B and the tapelibrary 108B are “off-site”, and may therefore be remotely located fromthe other components in the information management system 100 (e.g., ina different city, office building, etc.). In this manner, informationstored on the tape library 1088 may provide protection in the event of adisaster or other failure.

The file system sub-client and its associated primary data 112A incertain embodiments generally comprise information generated by the filesystem and/or operating system of the client computing device 102, andcan include, for example, file system data (e.g., regular files, filetables, mount points, etc.), operating system data (e.g., registries,event logs, etc.), and the like. The e-mail sub-client, on the otherhand, and its associated primary data 112B, include data generated by ane-mail client application operating on the client computing device 102,and can include mailbox information, folder information, emails,attachments, associated database information, and the like. As describedabove, the sub-clients can be logical containers, and the data includedin the corresponding primary data 112A, 112B may or may not be storedcontiguously.

The exemplary storage policy 148A includes a backup copy rule set 160, adisaster recovery copy rule set 162, and a compliance copy rule set 164.The backup copy rule set 160 specifies that it is associated with a filesystem sub-client 166 and an email sub-client 168. Each of thesesub-clients 166, 168 are associated with the particular client computingdevice 102. The backup copy rule set 160 further specifies that thebackup operation will be written to the disk library 108A, anddesignates a particular media agent 144A to convey the data to the disklibrary 108A. Finally, the backup copy rule set 160 specifies thatbackup copies created according to the rule set 160 are scheduled to begenerated on an hourly basis and to be retained for 30 days. In someother embodiments, scheduling information is not included in the storagepolicy 148A, and is instead specified by a separate scheduling policy.

The disaster recovery copy rule set 162 is associated with the same twosub-clients 166, 168. However, the disaster recovery copy rule set 162is associated with the tape library 108B, unlike the backup copy ruleset 160. Moreover, the disaster recovery copy rule set 162 specifiesthat a different media agent 144B than the media agent 144A associatedwith the backup copy rule set 160 will be used to convey the data to thetape library 108B. As indicated, disaster recovery copies createdaccording to the rule set 162 will be retained for 60 days, and will begenerated on a daily basis. Disaster recovery copies generated accordingto the disaster recovery copy rule set 162 can provide protection in theevent of a disaster or other data-loss event that would affect thebackup copy 116A maintained on the disk library 108A.

The compliance copy rule set 164 is only associated with the emailsub-client 166, and not the file system sub-client 168. Compliancecopies generated according to the compliance copy rule set 164 willtherefore not include primary data 112A from the file system sub-client166. For instance, the organization may be under an obligation to storemaintain copies of email data for a particular period of time (e.g., 10years) to comply with state or federal regulations, while similarregulations do not apply to the file system data. The compliance copyrule set 164 is associated with the same tape library 108B and mediaagent 144B as the disaster recovery copy rule set 162, although adifferent storage device or media agent could be used in otherembodiments. Finally, the compliance copy rule set 164 specifies thatcopies generated under the compliance copy rule set 164 will be retainedfor 10 years, and will be generated on a quarterly basis.

At step 1, the storage manager 140 initiates a backup operationaccording to the backup copy rule set 160. For instance, a schedulingservice running on the storage manager 140 accesses schedulinginformation from the backup copy rule set 160 or a separate schedulingpolicy associated with the client computing device 102, and initiates abackup copy operation on an hourly basis. Thus, at the scheduled timeslot the storage manager 140 sends instructions to the client computingdevice 102 to begin the backup operation.

At step 2, the file system data agent 142A and the email data agent 142Bresiding on the client computing device 102 respond to the instructionsreceived from the storage manager 140 by accessing and processing theprimary data 112A, 112B involved in the copy operation from the primarystorage device 104. Because the operation is a backup copy operation,the data agent(s) 142A, 142B may format the data into a backup format orotherwise process the data.

At step 3, the client computing device 102 communicates the retrieved,processed data to the first media agent 144A, as directed by the storagemanager 140, according to the backup copy rule set 160. In some otherembodiments, the information management system 100 may implement aload-balancing, availability-based, or other appropriate algorithm toselect from the available set of media agents 144A, 144B. Regardless ofthe manner the media agent 144A is selected, the storage manager 140 mayfurther keep a record in the storage manager database 140 of theassociation between the selected media agent 144A and the clientcomputing device 102 and/or between the selected media agent 144A andthe backup copy 116A.

The target media agent 144A receives the data from the client computingdevice 102, and at step 4 conveys the data to the disk library 108A tocreate the backup copy 116A, again at the direction of the storagemanager 140 and according to the backup copy rule set 160. The secondarystorage device 108A can be selected in other ways. For instance, themedia agent 144A may have a dedicated association with a particularsecondary storage device(s), or the storage manager 140 or media agent144A may select from a plurality of secondary storage devices, e.g.,according to availability, using one of the techniques described in U.S.Pat. No. 7,246,207, which is incorporated by reference herein.

The media agent 144A can also update its index 153 to include dataand/or metadata related to the backup copy 116A, such as informationindicating where the backup copy 116A resides on the disk library 108A,data and metadata for cache retrieval, etc. After the 30 day retentionperiod expires, the storage manager 140 instructs the media agent 144Ato delete the backup copy 116A from the disk library 108A.

At step 5, the storage manager 140 initiates the creation of a disasterrecovery copy 1166 according to the disaster recovery copy rule set 162.For instance, at step 6, based on instructions received from the storagemanager 140 at step 5, the specified media agent 144B retrieves the mostrecent backup copy 116A from the disk library 108A.

At step 7, again at the direction of the storage manager 140 and asspecified in the disaster recovery copy rule set 162, the media agent144B uses the retrieved data to create a disaster recovery copy 116B onthe tape library 108B. In some cases, the disaster recovery copy 1166 isa direct, mirror copy of the backup copy 116A, and remains in the backupformat. In other embodiments, the disaster recovery copy 116C may begenerated in some other manner, such as by using the primary data 112A,1126 from the storage device 104 as source data. The disaster recoverycopy operation is initiated once a day and the disaster recovery copies116A are deleted after 60 days.

At step 8, the storage manager 140 initiates the creation of acompliance copy 116C, according to the compliance copy rule set 164. Forinstance, the storage manager 140 instructs the media agent 144B tocreate the compliance copy 116C on the tape library 108B at step 9, asspecified in the compliance copy rule set 164. In the example, thecompliance copy 116C is generated using the disaster recovery copy 116B.In other embodiments, the compliance copy 116C is instead generatedusing either the primary data 112B corresponding to the email sub-clientor using the backup copy 116A from the disk library 108A as source data.As specified, compliance copies 116C are created quarterly, and aredeleted after ten years.

While not shown in FIG. 1E, at some later point in time, a restoreoperation can be initiated involving one or more of the secondary copies116A, 1166, 116C. As one example, a user may manually initiate a restoreof the backup copy 116A by interacting with the user interface 158 ofthe storage manager 140. The storage manager 140 then accesses data inits index 150 (and/or the respective storage policy 148A) associatedwith the selected backup copy 116A to identify the appropriate mediaagent 144A and/or secondary storage device 116A.

In other cases, a media agent may be selected for use in the restoreoperation based on a load balancing algorithm, an availability basedalgorithm, or other criteria. The selected media agent 144A retrievesthe data from the disk library 108A. For instance, the media agent 144Amay access its index 153 to identify a location of the backup copy 116Aon the disk library 108A, or may access location information residing onthe disk 108A itself.

When the backup copy 116A was recently created or accessed, the mediaagent 144A accesses a cached version of the backup copy 116A residing inthe media agent index 153, without having to access the disk library108A for some or all of the data. Once it has retrieved the backup copy116A, the media agent 144A communicates the data to the source clientcomputing device 102. Upon receipt, the file system data agent 142A andthe email data agent 142B may unpackage (e.g., restore from a backupformat to the native application format) the data in the backup copy116A and restore the unpackaged data to the primary storage device 104.

Exemplary Secondary Copy Formatting

The formatting and structure of secondary copies 116 can vary, dependingon the embodiment. In some cases, secondary copies 116 are formatted asa series of logical data units or “chunks” (e.g., 512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB, 4GB, or 8 GB chunks). This can facilitate efficient communication andwriting to secondary storage devices 108, e.g., according to resourceavailability. For example, a single secondary copy 116 may be written ona chunk-by-chunk basis to a single secondary storage device 108 oracross multiple secondary storage devices 108. In some cases, users canselect different chunk sizes, e.g., to improve throughput to tapestorage devices.

Generally, each chunk can include a header and a payload. The payloadcan include files (or other data units) or subsets thereof included inthe chunk, whereas the chunk header generally includes metadata relatingto the chunk, some or all of which may be derived from the payload. Forexample, during a secondary copy operation, the media agent 144, storagemanager 140, or other component may divide the associated files intochunks and generate headers for each chunk by processing the constituentfiles.

The headers can include a variety of information such as fileidentifier(s), volume(s), offset(s), or other information associatedwith the payload data items, a chunk sequence number, etc. Importantly,in addition to being stored with the secondary copy 116 on the secondarystorage device 108, the chunk headers can also be stored to the index153 of the associated media agent(s) 144 and/or the storage managerindex 150. This is useful in some cases for providing faster processingof secondary copies 116 during restores or other operations. In somecases, once a chunk is successfully transferred to a secondary storagedevice 108, the secondary storage device 108 returns an indication ofreceipt, e.g., to the media agent 144 and/or storage manager 140, whichmay update their respective indexes 150, 153 accordingly.

During restore, chunks may be processed (e.g., by the media agent 144)according to the information in the chunk header to reassemble thefiles. Additional information relating to chunks can be found in U.S.Pat. No. 8,156,086, which is incorporated by reference herein.

Shared Storage Management Services Overview

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of an example data storage systemarchitecture including multiple data storage cells and an externalstorage manager that performs management operations and data storageoperations for the data storage cells, according to certain embodiments.While any number of data storage cells may be included (e.g., 10, 50,100, 1000, 5000, or more), FIG. 2 depicts two data storage cells 201,202 and a decoupled (or external) storage management subsystem 203.

A data storage cell, such as data storage cells 201 and 202 shown inFIG. 2, may generally include combinations of hardware and softwarecomponents associated with performing storage operations on electronicdata. The storage cells 201, 202 depicted in FIG. 2 may comprise or forma part of a modular storage system, for instance, such as the CommVaultSimpana Information Management Software system, available from CommVaultSystems, Inc. of Oceanport, N.J., aspects of which are further describedin application Ser. No. 09/610,738, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,035,880, issuedApr. 25, 2006, which is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety. As shown in FIG. 2, the data storage cell 201 includes one ormore clients 211, one or more data agents 212, one or more media agents213, and one or more storage devices 214. Data storage cell 202 may besimilar to data storage cell 201 and include one or more of the variouscomponents mentioned above.

The client computer 211 can be communicatively coupled with aninformation store associated with the client computer 211 (not shown)and/or the storage manager 220. The information store contains dataassociated with the client 211, which can include production datagenerated by one or more software applications executing on the clientcomputing device 211. The client 211 can also be in direct communicationwith the media agent 213 and/or the backup storage device 214. Allcomponents of the data storage cell 201 can be in direct communicationwith each other or communicate indirectly via the client(s) 211, thestorage manager 220, the media agent(s) 213, or the like.

With further reference to FIG. 2, the client computer 211 (alsogenerally referred to as a client or production machine) contains datain the information store that can be backed up in and then restored fromthe backup storage device 214. In an illustrative embodiment, the client211 can correspond to a wide variety of computing devices includingpersonal computing devices, laptop computing devices, hand-heldcomputing devices, terminal computing devices, mobile devices, wirelessdevices, various electronic devices, appliances and the like. In anillustrative embodiment, the client 211 includes hardware and softwarecomponents for establishing communication with the other components ofdata storage cell 201. For example, the client 211 can be equipped withnetworking equipment and browser software applications that facilitatecommunication with the rest of the components from data storage cell201. Although not illustrated in FIG. 2, each client 211 can include orbe coupled to a display for presenting one or more user interfaces ofthe data storage system, such as a user interface for interacting withthe storage manager 220. For instance, the user interface can includevarious menus and fields for entering storage and restore options. Theuser interface can further present the results of any processingperformed by the storage manager 220 in an easy to understand format.

Data agent 212 may be the same or similar to the data agents 142described with respect to FIGS. 1C-1E, and may be a software module thatis generally responsible for archiving, migrating, and recovering dataof a client computer 211 stored in an information store or other memorylocation. Each client computer 211 may have at least one data agent 212,and the data storage cell 201 can support many client computers 211. Thedata storage cell 201 provides a plurality of data agents 212 each ofwhich is intended to backup, migrate, and recover data associated with adifferent application. For example, different individual data agents 212may be designed to handle Microsoft Exchange™ data, Microsoft Windowsfile system data, data generated by various types of databaseapplications, and other types of data known in the art. If a clientcomputer 211 has two or more types of data, one data agent 212 may beimplemented for each data type to archive, migrate, and restore theclient computer 211 data.

The media agent 213 may be the same or similar to the media agents 144described with respect to FIGS. 1C-1E and is generally a software modulethat conducts data, as directed by the storage manager 220, betweenlocations in the data storage cell 201. For example, the media agent 213may conduct data between the client computer 211 and one or more backupstorage devices 214, between two or more backup storage devices 214,etc. One or more of the media agents 213 can also be communicativelycoupled to one another. In some embodiments, the media agent 213communicates with the storage manager 220 via a wide area network(“WAN”). The media agent 213 generally communicates with the backupstorage devices 214 via a local bus. In some embodiments, the backupstorage device 214 is communicatively coupled to the media agent(s) 213via a Storage Area Network (“SAN”). In some embodiments, the componentsthat are internal to the storage cell 201, such as the clients 211 andthe media agents 213 communicate with at least some of the otherinternal components (e.g., the clients 211, data agents 212, storagedevices 214, etc.) via a relatively fast network (e.g., a local areanetwork [“LAN”] or SAN), and communicate with the external storagemanagement system 220 via a relatively slower network such as a WAN,although any type of appropriate network technology may be used. Thenetwork may comprise a public network such as the Internet, virtualprivate network (VPN), token ring or TCP/IP based network, wide areanetwork (WAN), local area network (LAN), an intranet network,point-to-point link, a wireless network, cellular network, wireless datatransmission system, two-way cable system, interactive kiosk network,satellite network, broadband network, baseband network, combinations ofthe same or the like.

The storage devices 214 can include any type of appropriate mediatechnology, including a tape library, hard-drives or other types ofmagnetic media storage device(s), solid-state media storage device(s),optical media storage device(s), or other storage device(s) includingother types of media. The backup storage devices 214 can further storethe data according to a deduplication schema, such as discussed below.Where deduplication is used, the storage devices 214 can also maintainsignature blocks corresponding to stored data blocks.

Further embodiments of storage systems such as the one shown in FIG. 2are described in application Ser. No. 10/818,749, now U.S. Pat. No.7,246,207, issued Jul. 17, 2007, which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety. In various embodiments, components of thestorage system may be distributed amongst multiple computers, or one ormore of the components may reside and execute on the same computer.

Additionally, the various components of FIG. 2 may be configured fordeduplication. For example, one or more of the clients 211 can include adeduplicated database (DDB). The data stored in the storage devices 214may also be deduplicated. For example, one or more of the media agents213 associated with the respective storage devices 214 can manage thededuplication of data in the storage devices 214.

A decoupled storage management subsystem 203 may include one or moreproxy servers 224 and one or more storage managers 220. The decoupledstorage management subsystem 203 provides one or more external storagemanagers 220 to data storage cells 201 and 202. The storage manager 220is external to data storage cells 201 and 202 in the sense that thestorage manager 220 is operated separately from the storage cells 201and 202 and/or by another party. Such party may be a party havingspecialized knowledge for managing the data storage system or a partyotherwise better-suited for administering the storage manager.Accordingly, the data storage cell 201, 202 components and the storagemanager 220 are separate from each other. That is, the storage manager220 may not physically or logically be a part of the same network as thedata storage cells 201 and 202. For instance, the storage cell 201, 202components can be located remotely from the storage manager 220.

A proxy server 224 generally monitors and regulates communicationbetween components in the decoupled storage management subsystem 203 andcomponents outside the decoupled storage management subsystem 203. Theproxy server 224 may implement and manage firewall settings and groups.The proxy server 224 can be located within the demilitarized zone (DMZ)in the decoupled storage management system 203. A proxy server 224 maybe a proxy device described in application Ser. No. 13/118,169, filed onMay 27, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

Generally speaking, storage manager 220 may be the same or similar tothe storage managers 140 described with respect to FIGS. 1C-1E, and canbe a software module or application that coordinates and controls thesystem. The storage manager 220 can communicate with some or all of theelements of the data storage cell 201, including the client computers211, the data agents 212, the media agents 213, and the backup storagedevices 214, to initiate and manage system backups, migrations,recoveries, and the like. In one embodiment, the storage manager 220communicates with the clients 211, data agents 212, media agents 213,and/or storage devices 214 via a WAN. In some embodiments, the storagemanager 220 may also be a part of the data storage cell 201. Forexample, the storage manager 220 may be associated with a particulardepartment within a company, and the other departments in the companymay lease the storage manager 220. In such case, the storage manager 220and the other elements of the data storage cell 201 may communicate overLAN.

The storage manager 220 may also include a storage manager allocationmodule 221. The storage manager allocation module 221 generally receivesregistration requests from clients in a data storage cell and associatesthe clients with the group for the corresponding data storage cell. Theallocation module 221 may place the clients in a waiting room datastructure 222 while they are waiting to be processed. Upon initialregistration, the allocation module 221 may access a data structure 223in order to assign the entity (e.g., a client 211) to an appropriategroup and/or sub-group.

The storage manager 220 can maintain a data structure 223 that includesinformation relating to entities that are registered with the storagemanagement system 203. For instance, the data structure 223 can includegrouping information for each registered entity (e.g., each clientcomputing device 211, each data storage cell 201 or associatedorganization) indicative of which group or set of groups the registeredentity belongs to. The data structure 223 can also store otherinformation associated with the registered entities. For instance, thedata structure 223 can include a record for each registered group (orsub-group) identifying a set of one or more storage policies associatedwith a particular registered entity or group of registered entities(e.g., company A, company B) and/or a firewall group associated with aparticular registered entity or group of registered entities. In thismanner, when a request comes in to the storage manager 220 to perform aparticular management function, it can access relevant information fromthe data structure 223 in satisfying the request. For instance, thestorage manager 220 may receive a request to manage a backup operationfor a first client of Company A. The storage manager 220 can access thedata structure 223 to determine that the first client belongs to a groupcorresponding to Company A and is associated with a particular one ofthe storage policies. The storage manager 220 then uses this informationin performing the requested management function.

In some embodiments, the storage manager allocation module 221 is asoftware module that forms a part of or resides on the storage manager220 and/or the same computing device on which the storage manager 220resides. Alternatively, the storage manage allocation module 221 canresides on a separate computing device than one or more other componentsof the storage manager 220. Although shown in FIG. 2 as a part of thestorage manager 220, the waiting room 222 may also be on a separatecomputing device. The data structure associated with entities 223 may bestored on the storage manager 220 as shown in FIG. 2 or, alternatively,on a separate computing device. The allocation module 221, the waitingroom 222, and the data structure associated with entities 223 will bediscussed in more detail with respect to FIGS. 3-6.

An Example Data Storage System Providing an External Storage Manager toData Storage Cells

FIG. 3 is a data flow diagram illustrative of the interaction betweenthe various components of an example data storage system 303 includingexternal storage manager and storage cells 301 and 302, according tocertain embodiments. As illustrated, the storage cell 301 includes oneor more clients 311, one or more data agents 312, one or more mediaagents 313, and one or more storage devices 314. The client 311, thedata agent 312, the media agents 313, and the storage devices 314 can besimilar or the same as the clients 211, the data agents 212, the mediaagents 213, and the storage devices 214 in FIG. 2. All components ofdata storage cell 301 can be in direct communication with each other orcommunicate indirectly via the client 311, the media agent 313, or thelike. Data storage cell 302 may have a similar configuration as datastorage cell 301. In certain embodiments, some of the components in FIG.3 shown as separate components can reside on a single computing device.For example, the data agent 312 can reside on the client 311 or on aseparate computing device.

As shown in FIG. 3, the decoupled storage management subsystem 303includes a storage manager 320. The storage management system 303 mayalso include proxy servers (not shown), similar to the proxy servers 224in FIG. 2. The storage manager 320 can include a storage managerallocation module 321 and a waiting room 322, which are similar to thestorage manager allocation module 221 and the waiting room 222 in FIG.2. All components of the storage management system 303 can be in directcommunication with each other or communicate indirectly. As explainedabove, in certain embodiments, some of the components in FIG. 3 shown asseparate components can reside on a single computing device. Forexample, the storage manager allocation module 321 can be on the storagemanager 320 or on a separate computing device.

With further reference to FIG. 3, the interaction between the variouscomponents of the storage management system 303 and the data storagecells 301 and 302 will now be described in greater detail with respectto data flow steps indicated by the numbered arrows.

At data flow step 1, user credentials are created for a user associatedwith data storage cell 301. Once established, the credentials allow theuser to use the storage manager 320, which is located in the storagemanagement system 303, to manage data storage operations for datastorage cell 301. In some embodiments, the credentials include one ormore of user login name, password, and company name. In one embodiment,the user login name may be the same as the company name. In someembodiments, the information entered by the user to create usercredentials is stored in the storage management system 303, e.g., to beused in mapping a client associated with the user login name to a groupfor the company. Other credentials that may be used can include companycredentials.

At data flow step 2, the data storage system package is installed on theclient 311. For instance, after the credentials are created, the usermay download the necessary data storage system package for installationon the client 311. In one embodiment, the user interface that allows theuser to create the credentials may display a button to download theinstall package after the credentials are created. In one embodiment,the data storage system package includes the package for installing thedata agent(s) 312, media agent(s) 313 and/or a file system. In someembodiments, while the package is being installed on the client 311, theclient 311 is in a de-coupled mode, i.e., the storage manager 320 is notaware of the existence of the client 311 or that the data storage systempackage is being/has been installed on the client 311. Such a de-coupledinstallation mode may be the same as or similar to the de-coupledinstallation modes described in application Ser. No. 12/628,890, filedon Dec. 1, 2009, which is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

In one embodiment, the installation package includes a registrationutility for registering the client 311 with the storage manager 320. Inone example, the registration utility can specify the storage managername, the proxy name, the routes to the storage manager through theproxy, and the waiting room identifier. Such information may bespecified in a configuration/settings file, such as an XML file. Thestorage manager name indicates the name of the storage manager that isassigned to a data storage cell. In FIG. 3, storage manager 320 isassigned to data storage cell 201 and may be indicated in theconfiguration file. In other embodiments, the storage management system303 may include one or more storage managers, and the storage managerfor a data storage cell may be assigned at a later time, as explained inmore detail below with respect to data flow step 3. The proxy namerefers to the proxy server the client 311 will access to communicatewith the storage manager 320 for the initial registration process. Thedata storage cells 301 and 302 may communicate with the storage manager320 through proxy servers (such as proxy servers 224 in FIG. 2) in thestorage management system 303. The routes to the storage manager 320through the proxy server refer to one or more routes the client 311 cantake through the designated proxy server in order to communicate withthe storage manager 320. The waiting room identifier refers to anidentifier for a waiting group in which the client 311 is placed so thatthe storage manager 320 can process it for registration. The waitingroom will be explained in more detail below with respect to data flowstep 5.

At data flow step 3, the client 311 transmits a request for registrationwith the assigned storage manager. In one embodiment, the registrationutility transmits the registration request. In one embodiment, theregistration request may be sent through the designated proxy server,using one of the routes specified in the configuration file. In someembodiments, a single storage manager serves all of the storagemanagement needs of any particular data storage cells. In otherembodiments, a storage manager pool including a plurality of storagemanagers are provided. In such embodiments, the storage manager for adata storage cell may not be assigned in the installation package, butmay instead be assigned dynamically e.g., based on storage-manageravailability. For instance, the storage manager can be assigned on an adhoc basis in view of the processing load for each storage manager.Alternatively, a default storage manager could be assigned in theinstallation package, and if the load for that storage manager is toohigh, the data storage cell could be assigned to another availablestorage manager.

At data flow step 4, the storage manager 320 receives a request forregistration with the assigned storage manager. As mentioned above withrespect to data flow step 3, the storage manager for a data storage cellmay not be assigned initially; instead, it can be assigned on a dynamicbasis from a pool including several storage managers, according tocertain pre-determined criteria. In some embodiments, the client 311 isnow in coupled mode, i.e., the storage manager 320 is aware of theexistence of the client 311. In some embodiments, the storage managerallocation module 321 may receive the registration requests. In someembodiments, a component in the storage management system 303 other thanthe storage manager 320 may receive the registration requests fromclients.

At data flow step 5, the storage manager 320 places the requestingclient 311 in the waiting room 322. In one embodiment, the waiting room322 is a data structure that logically defines a group in which a clientis placed while registration with the storage manager 320 is pending.For instance, the waiting room 322 may include a list of entriescorresponding to all of the client(s) 311 that are currently present inthe waiting room 322. Thus, at step 5, the storage manager 320 may addan entry corresponding to the particular requesting client 311 to thelist. There may be more than one waiting room. A waiting room 322 can beidentified by a waiting room identifier. In one embodiment, if thewaiting room identifier is provided in the install package, the client311 is placed in the waiting room identified by the waiting roomidentifier. Any appropriate business or other decision logic may beapplied while the client 311 is in the waiting room 322. For example, inan implementation where individual client data storage cells 301, 302“lease” the services of the storage manager system 303 on a paid orother type of subscription basis, the storage manager 320 can determinewhether or not the company or user associated with the client datastorage cell 301 is in an “active” status with respect to itssubscription (e.g., whether or not any necessary payments have beenmade). At this point, the client 311 may not yet be associated with thegroup to which the client 311 belongs if the client has not beenpreviously registered with the storage manager 320. In the example ofFIG. 3, the client 311 is not recognized as belonging to the group forCompany A because the client 311 is registering for the first time withthe storage manager 320.

At data flow step 6, the storage manager allocation module 321 polls thewaiting room data structure 322 to see if there are any entries in thewaiting room 322 corresponding to clients awaiting registration. If anentry is included in the waiting room 322 for a particular client 311,the storage manager allocation module 321 processes the registration forthe client 311. The storage manager allocation module 321 may alsoremove the entry from the waiting room 322 corresponding to the subjectclient 311. The allocation module 321 may poll the waiting room 322periodically at a regular interval (or on some other timed basis) oraccording to some other predetermined criteria.

At data flow step 7, the storage manager allocation module 321determines the group for the requesting client 311. If the allocationmodule 321 detects a client 311 in the waiting room 322, the allocationmodule 321 may access a data structure 323 including data associatedwith one or more logical groups. The data structure 323 can include avariety of information relating to entities that are registered with thestorage management system 303. For instance, the data structure 323 caninclude grouping information for each registered entity that indicateswhich group or set of groups the registered entity belongs to, such asclient group, user group, etc. The data structure 323 can also storeother information associated with the registered entities, such asstorage policies and firewall group for each registered entity. The datastructure 323 may also include information associated with one or moreclients 311 that belong to the registered entity. Such information caninclude company name, owner or user, operating system, operating systemversion, service pack level, patch level, etc.

In one embodiment, a group is associated with the company associatedwith the client 311, e.g., Company A in FIG. 3. If the group for theclient 311 does not exist, e.g., because the client 311 is the firstclient to register from the company, the group can be created at thistime. In some cases, this grouping can be more granular and can includemore than one level of grouping. For instance, one embodiment, the groupfor a client can include the client group for the company as well as auser group for the company. If the group for the client 311 alreadyexists, the allocation module 321 can determine the group for the client311 by reviewing the data structure 323 associated with various existinggroups. The information included in the data structure 323 can include avariety of other information associated with the particular group orother entities or clients within the group, including, withoutlimitation, storage policies, and a firewall group for thatcompany/organization.

In one embodiment, the information obtained for creating usercredentials is stored in the storage management system 303. Thisinformation may be stored in the data structure 323 for the associatedentity. The information may include the company name for the user loginassociated with a user in that company. In this way, a mapping can existbetween a user login and the corresponding company name, and thismapping information can be used to determine the appropriate group forthe client 311. For example, suppose User A from Company A has the login“userA.” If a user logs in on the client 311 with the login “userA,” theallocation module 321 determines from the mapping information indicatinglogin “userA” belongs to Company A that the client 311 belongs to thegroup for Company A. If the group for Company A does not exist yet, theallocation module 321 creates the group. If the group for Company Aexists, the allocation module 322 assigns the client 311 to the groupfor Company A.

At data flow step 8, the storage manager allocation module 321associates the client 311 with characteristics for the group. After thegroup for the client 311 is determined or created, the allocation module321 associates the client 311 with any characteristics, configurations,or settings for that group. Such characteristics, configurations, orsettings may be maintained in the data structure 323 and can includestorage policies, firewall group, client group, user group, users, andany other information. For example, in FIG. 3, once the client 311 isassociated with the corresponding group for Company A, the client 311will be recognized as belonging to the user group and the client groupfor Company A. In addition, the client 311 can be associated with thestorage policies for Company A as shown in the data structure 323. Aclient may be associated with all the storage policies for the group ora subset thereof. For instance, a first group of clients may beassociated with a first storage policy, a second group of clients with asecond storage policy, and a third group of clients with both the firstand second storage policies. In FIG. 3, the client 311 can be associatedwith storage policy 1, storage policy 2, or both. The characteristics,configurations, or settings associated with a group may also includededuplication, content indexing, encryption, firewall settings, usermanagement privileges, etc.

In one embodiment, a group is assigned a firewall group. The firewallgroup may specify the firewall settings for communication between theclients 311 and storage managers 320 through proxy servers. The firewallsettings may set forth one or more routes through the proxy servers.There can be one firewall group for all groups, or alternatively, therecan be multiple firewall groups for various groups. In one embodiment,one firewall group is set up for all the groups. Such embodimentprovides ease of implementation since the firewall settings do not haveto be applied to each group. A group that is assigned to a particularfirewall group can inherit all the settings of that firewall group.

After the client 311 is associated with the characteristics for thecorresponding group, the registration of the client 311 can be complete.At this point, the control panel on the client 311 may show all clientsbelonging to the same group. In certain embodiments, the client 311 canbe removed from the waiting room 322 after the registration is completefor any further processing.

At data flow step 9, the storage manager 320 receives a request for astorage management operation from the data storage cell 301 (e.g., froma particular requesting client 311). Once the registration for therequesting entity (e.g., a particular client 311) is complete, requestscan be made to perform any of the data storage management functionsprovided through the external storage manager 320. Requests can be madein various ways, including the following examples: 1) a request can bemade by a user through the storage manager interface (e.g., GUI); and 2)a request can be triggered automatically by data agents 312 or othercomponents executing in the storage cell 301. Such requests can be sentvia a route through a proxy server as defined in the firewall groupsettings. The control panel user interface can communicate through theproxy. From the point of view of the user, it may seem that the user isinteracting with a storage manager within the user's own data storagecell. The data storage operations can be largely similar to those thatmight be provided by an “internal” storage manager that is part of thedata storage cell. In one embodiment, the available storage managementoperations may be a subset of the operations provided by an internal oron-site storage manager. In one embodiment, the control panel forperforming data storage operations is a simpler version or a subset ofall the operations available to an internal or on-site storage manager.The control panel is limited so that a user from one data storage cellwould not be able to change global settings for the storage manager 320that affect all data storage cells. However, the user will be able toalter configuration/settings for the user's own data storage cell.

The data storage management operations provided by the storage manager320 may include the following: initiation and/or management of variousdata storage operations including, without limitation, secondary copyoperations, restore operations, data aging operations, auxiliary copyoperations, view schedules, view log files, view users logged in, eventsearch, etc. The storage operations can include replication operations,snapshot operations, archiving operations, and the like. A descriptionof some storage operations compatible with embodiments described hereinis provided near the end of this disclosure. Some examples of commandsor functions that are provided in the control panel may includesuspend/resume/kill a storage operation, change storage operationcontent, enable/disable activity on clients, delete clients, restoredata from clients, etc.

At data flow step 10, the storage manager 320 performs the requestedstorage management function. For instance, the client 311 may requestthat the storage manager 320 initiate and/or manage a backup of all theclient's 311 (e.g., of company emails). In response, the storage manager320 initiates the backup operation. For instance, the storage manager320 may instruct the data agents 312, media agents 313, and storagedevices 314 to perform the necessary operations to backup all emails indata storage cell 301. In one embodiment, the storage manager 320accesses the data structure associated with the groups 323 in order toperform the requested data storage operation. For example, the storagemanager 320 may access the data structure 323 to determine which groupthe requesting client 311 belongs to. Based on this information, thestorage manager 320 may also access one or more of the storage policies1 and 2 for Company A. And, based on the storage policy associated withthe client 311, the storage manager 320 conducts the backup operation.Or, in some other cases, the storage manager 320 may access the datastructure associated with the group 323 to add a new storage policy(e.g., an incremental storage policy). In some embodiments, the storagemanager 320 may initiate the backup according to a schedule, e.g., asdefined in a storage policy.

In this manner, the data storage operations and the control panel formanaging the operations is simplified. Accordingly, management of a datastorage system and protection of data becomes less complex. Suchstreamlined management process may be particularly suitable for small-or medium-sized enterprises, since it saves time and resources inadministering the data storage cells. For example, minimal setup withrespect to the storage manager 320 may be required. Moreover, adedicated administrator can be available for the storage manager 320 onthe storage management system 303 side to troubleshoot any problems. Theadministrator can troubleshoot problems within the storage manager 320as well as problems within the data storage cells 301 and 302, e.g., viaremote diagnostics. Remote diagnostics techniques may be those describedin application Ser. No. 11/963,732, filed on Dec. 21, 2007, which ishereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. In this way, the datastorage cells using an external storage manager can take advantage ofthe knowledge and skills of a dedicated administrator.

In FIG. 3, the data for an organization is stored within the datastorage cells 301 and 302, e.g., in the storage devices 314. Because thedata stays within the data storage cells 301 and 302, the data can bebetter protected, and privacy can be maintained. Storing the data withinthe data storage cells can also allow deduplication of the data sincethe data does not need to be encrypted. In other embodiments, the datamay be stored on storage devices provided in the storage managementsystem 303, in addition to or instead of being stored within the datastorage cells 301 and 302. As explained above, using an external storagemanager can save time and reduce dedicated computing resources or ITpersonnel in setting up and operating a data storage cell.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrative of one embodiment of a routine 400implemented by a data storage cell that utilizes an external storagemanager. The routine 400 is described with respect to data storage cells301 and 302 and the storage management system 303 of FIG. 3. However,one or more of the steps of routine 400 may be implemented by other datastorage cells, such as those described in greater detail above withreference to FIG. 2. The routine 400 can be implemented by any one, or acombination of, a client, a data agent, a media agent, and the like.Moreover, further details regarding certain aspects of at least some ofsteps of the routine 400 are described in greater detail above withreference to FIG. 3.

At block 401, the client 311 creates user credentials for a userassociated with the data storage cell 301. The user credentials allowthe user to register with the storage manager 320. As explained withrespect to FIG. 3, the information for creating the credentials caninclude the user login, password, company name, etc.

At block 402, the client 311 installs the data storage system package.The data storage system package may include the minimum system setuprequired in order for the client 311 to communicate and register withthe storage manager 320.

At block 403, the client 311 transmits a request for registration to oneor more storage managers 320. As explained with respect to FIG. 3, thestorage manager 320 for the data storage cell 301 may be assigned in theinstallation package or may be assigned at a later time depending onavailability of several storage managers. In one embodiment, the client311 transmits the request to the storage manager 320 through a proxyserver in the storage management system 303 using a firewall routespecified by the installation package.

The routine 400 can include fewer, more, or different blocks than thoseillustrated in FIG. 4 without departing from the spirit and scope of thedescription.

Moreover, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art and othersthat some or all of the functions described in this disclosure may beembodied in software executed by one or more processors of the disclosedcomponents and mobile communication devices. The software may bepersistently stored in any type of non-volatile storage.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrative of one embodiment of a routine 500implemented by a data storage system that provides an external storagemanager to multiple data storage cells. The routine 500 is describedwith respect to data storage cells 301 and 302 and the storagemanagement system 303 of FIG. 3. However, one or more of the steps ofroutine 500 may be implemented by other data storage systems, such asthat described in greater detail above with reference to FIG. 2. Theroutine 500 can be implemented by, for example, a storage manager or astorage manager allocation module. Moreover, further details regardingcertain aspects of at least some of steps of the routine 500 aredescribed in greater detail above with reference to FIG. 3.

At block 501, the storage manager 320 receives a request forregistration from the client 311. At block 502, the storage manager 320indicates that a client 311 is waiting pending registration. Variousmethods can be used to indicate that the client 311 needs to beprocessed for registration. One example may be placing the client 311 ina queue for registration. The routine 500 can include fewer, more, ordifferent blocks than those illustrated in FIG. 5 without departing fromthe spirit and scope of the description.

Moreover, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art and othersthat some or all of the functions described in this disclosure may beembodied in software executed by one or more processors of the disclosedcomponents and mobile communication devices. The software may bepersistently stored in any type of non-volatile storage.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrative of one embodiment of a routine 600implemented by a data storage system that provides an external storagemanager to data storage cells. The routine 600 is described with respectto data storage cells 301 and 302 and the storage management system 303of FIG. 3. However, one or more of the steps of routine 600 may beimplemented by other data storage cells, such as those described ingreater detail above with reference to FIG. 2. The routine 600 can beimplemented by, for example, a storage manager or a storage managerallocation module. Moreover, further details regarding certain aspectsof at least some of steps of the routine 600 are described in greaterdetail above with reference to FIG. 3.

At block 601, the storage manager 320 determines whether any client 311is waiting pending registration. If a client 311 is pendingregistration, as shown in block 602, the storage manager 320 appliesbusiness logic at block 603. The storage manager 320 can implement anyprocessing or logic while the client 311 is waiting to be registered.

At block 604, the storage manager 320 determines the group for theclient 311. The group can identify all clients 311 that are associatedwith the group as well as any storage policies, settings, andconfigurations for the company associated with the group. If the groupfor the requesting client 311 does not exist, as shown in block 605,then the storage manager 320 creates the group for the client 311 atblock 606. If the group exists, the storage manager 320 associates theclient 311 with characteristics for the group at block 607.

At block 608, the storage manager 320 receives a request for a datastorage operation from the client 311. At block 609, the storage manager320 performs the requested data storage operation. The type of storageoperation may include, for example, backup, migration, snapshot,replication operation, etc.

The routine 600 can include fewer, more, or different blocks than thoseillustrated in FIG. 6 without departing from the spirit and scope of thedescription.

Moreover, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art and othersthat some or all of the functions described in this disclosure may beembodied in software executed by one or more processors of the disclosedcomponents and mobile communication devices. The software may bepersistently stored in any type of non-volatile storage.

Storage operations compatible with embodiments described herein will nowbe described. For example, data can be stored in primary storage (e.g.,production storage) as a primary copy (e.g., production data) or insecondary storage (e.g., non-production storage) as various types ofsecondary copies (e.g., non-production data) including, as a backupcopy, a snapshot copy, a hierarchical storage management copy (“HSM”),an archive copy, and other types of copies. Certain embodimentsdescribed herein with respect to backup operations are similarlycompatible with each of these types of operations.

A primary copy of data according to some embodiments is a productioncopy or other “live” version of the data which is used by a softwareapplication and is generally in the native format of that application.Such primary copy data is typically intended for short term retention(e.g., several hours or days) before some or all of the data is storedas one or more secondary copies, such as, for example, to prevent lossof data in the event a problem occurred with the data stored in primarystorage.

Secondary copies can include point-in-time data and are typicallyintended for long-term retention (e.g., weeks, months or years) beforesome or all of the data is moved to other storage or is discarded.Secondary copies may be indexed so users can browse and restore the dataat another point in time. After certain primary copy data is backed up,a pointer or other location indicia such as a stub may be placed in theprimary copy to indicate the current location of that data.

One type of secondary copy is a backup copy. A backup copy in someembodiments is a copy of production data and, in some embodiments, canbe stored in a backup format, e.g., as opposed to a native applicationformat. For example, a backup copy may be stored in a backup format thatfacilitates compression and/or efficient long-term storage. Backupcopies generally have relatively long retention periods and may bestored on media with slower retrieval times than other types ofsecondary copies and media. In some cases, backup copies may be storedat on offsite location.

Another form of secondary copy is a snapshot copy. From an end-userviewpoint, in some embodiments, a snapshot may be thought of as aninstant image of the primary copy data at a given point in time. Asnapshot generally captures the directory structure of a primary copyvolume at a particular moment in time and may also preserve fileattributes and contents. In some embodiments, a snapshot may exist as avirtual file system, parallel to the actual file system. Users typicallygain read-only access to the record of files and directories of thesnapshot. By electing to restore primary copy data from a snapshot takenat a given point in time, users may also return the current file systemto the state of the file system that existed when the snapshot wastaken.

A snapshot in some cases is created substantially instantly, using aminimum amount of file space, but may still function as a conventionalfile system backup. Some types of snapshots do not actually createanother physical copy of all the data, but may simply create pointersthat are able to map files and directories to specific disk blocks.

In some embodiments, once a snapshot has been taken, subsequent changesto the file system typically do not overwrite the blocks in use at thetime of the snapshot. Therefore, the initial snapshot may use only asmall amount of disk space needed to record a mapping or other datastructure representing or otherwise tracking the blocks that correspondto the current state of the file system. Additional disk space isusually required only when files and directories are actually modifiedlater. Furthermore, when files are modified, typically only the pointerswhich map to blocks are copied, not the blocks themselves. In someembodiments, for example in the case of copy-on-write snapshots, when ablock changes in primary storage, the block is copied to secondarystorage before the block is overwritten in primary storage. The snapshotmapping of file system data is also updated to reflect the changedblock(s) at that particular point in time.

An HSM copy can be a copy of the primary copy data but typicallyincludes only a subset of the primary copy data that meets a certaincriteria and is usually stored in a format other than the nativeapplication format. For example, an HSM copy may include data from theprimary copy that is larger than a given size threshold or older than agiven age threshold and that is stored in a backup format. Often, HSMdata is removed from the primary copy, and a stub is stored in theprimary copy to indicate the new location of the HSM data. When a userrequests access to the HSM data that has been removed or migrated,systems use the stub to locate the data and often make recovery of thedata appear transparent, even though the HSM data may be stored at alocation different from the remaining primary copy data.

An archive copy according to some embodiments is generally similar to anHSM copy. However, the data satisfying criteria for removal from theprimary copy is generally completely removed with no stub left in theprimary copy to indicate the new location (i.e., where the archive copydata has been moved to). Archive copies of data are sometimes stored ina backup format or other non-native application format. In addition,archive copies are generally retained for very long periods of time(e.g., years) and, in some cases, are never deleted. In certainembodiments, such archive copies may be made and kept for extendedperiods in order to meet compliance regulations or for other permanentstorage applications.

In some embodiments, application data over its lifetime moves from moreexpensive quick access storage to less expensive slower access storage.This process of moving data through these various tiers of storage issometimes referred to as information lifecycle management (“ILM”). Thisis the process by which data is “aged” from forms of primary storagewith faster access/restore times down through less expensive secondarystorage with slower access/restore times. For example, such aging mayoccur as data becomes less important or mission critical over time.

Similar data transfers associated with location-specific criteria areperformed when restoring data from secondary storage to primary storage.For example, to restore data a user or system process generally mustspecify a particular secondary storage device, piece of media, orarchive file. Thus, the precision with which conventional storagemanagement systems perform storage operations on electronic data isgenerally limited by the ability to define or specify storage operationsbased on data location.

TERMINOLOGY

Conditional language, such as, among others, “can,” “could,” “might,” or“may,” unless specifically stated otherwise, or otherwise understoodwithin the context as used, is generally intended to convey that certainembodiments include, while other embodiments do not include, certainfeatures, elements and/or steps. Thus, such conditional language is notgenerally intended to imply that features, elements and/or steps are inany way required for one or more embodiments or that one or moreembodiments necessarily include logic for deciding, with or without userinput or prompting, whether these features, elements and/or steps areincluded or are to be performed in any particular embodiment.

Depending on the embodiment, certain acts, events, or functions of anyof the algorithms described herein can be performed in a differentsequence, can be added, merged, or left out all together (e.g., not alldescribed acts or events are necessary for the practice of thealgorithms). Moreover, in certain embodiments, acts or events can beperformed concurrently, e.g., through multi-threaded processing,interrupt processing, or multiple processors or processor cores or onother parallel architectures, rather than sequentially.

Systems and modules described herein may comprise software, firmware,hardware, or any combination(s) of software, firmware, or hardwaresuitable for the purposes described herein. Software and other modulesmay reside on servers, workstations, personal computers, computerizedtablets, PDAs, and other devices suitable for the purposes describedherein. Software and other modules may be accessible via local memory,via a network, via a browser, or via other means suitable for thepurposes described herein. Data structures described herein may comprisecomputer files, variables, programming arrays, programming structures,or any electronic information storage schemes or methods, or anycombinations thereof, suitable for the purposes described herein. Userinterface elements described herein may comprise elements from graphicaluser interfaces, command line interfaces, and other suitable interfaces.

Further, the processing of the various components of the illustratedsystems can be distributed across multiple machines, networks, and othercomputing resources. In addition, two or more components of a system canbe combined into fewer components. Various components of the illustratedsystems can be implemented in one or more virtual machines, rather thanin dedicated computer hardware systems. Likewise, the data repositoriesshown can represent physical and/or logical data storage, including, forexample, storage area networks or other distributed storage systems.Moreover, in some embodiments the connections between the componentsshown represent possible paths of data flow, rather than actualconnections between hardware. While some examples of possibleconnections are shown, any of the subset of the components shown cancommunicate with any other subset of components in variousimplementations.

Embodiments are also described above with reference to flow chartillustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) andcomputer program products. Each block of the flow chart illustrationsand/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flow chartillustrations and/or block diagrams, may be implemented by computerprogram instructions. Such instructions may be provided to a processorof a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or otherprogrammable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such thatthe instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer orother programmable data processing apparatus, create means forimplementing the acts specified in the flow chart and/or block diagramblock or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in acomputer-readable memory that can direct a computer or otherprogrammable data processing apparatus to operate in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readablememory produce an article of manufacture including instruction meanswhich implement the acts specified in the flow chart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks. The computer program instructions may also beloaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatusto cause a series of operations to be performed on the computer or otherprogrammable apparatus to produce a computer implemented process suchthat the instructions which execute on the computer or otherprogrammable apparatus provide steps for implementing the acts specifiedin the flow chart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

While certain embodiments have been described, these embodiments havebeen presented by way of example only, and are not intended to limit thescope of the disclosure. Indeed, the novel methods and systems describedherein may be embodied in a variety of other forms; furthermore, variousomissions, substitutions and changes in the form of the describedmethods and systems may be made without departing from the spirit of thedisclosure. The accompanying claims and their equivalents are intendedto cover such forms or modifications as would fall within the scope andspirit of the disclosure.

1. (canceled)
 2. A method of providing shared data storage managementservices to a plurality of data storage cells, comprising: using astorage manager comprising one or more hardware processors: receiving afirst request to allow a first component of a first data storage cell ofa plurality of data storage cells to utilize storage management servicesprovided by the storage manager and a second request to allow a secondcomponent of a second data storage cell of the plurality of data storagecells to utilize the storage management services provided by the storagemanager, each of the first data storage cell and the second data storagecell located remotely from the storage manager and comprising at least:(i) one or more client computing devices comprising computer hardwareand configured to generate primary data, and (ii) one or more secondarystorage computing devices comprising computer hardware and configured tocause storage of secondary copies of the primary data at the directionof the storage manager; determining that the first component is to beassigned to a first group associated with a first storage policy;determining that the second component is to be assigned to a secondgroup different from the first group, the second group associated with asecond storage policy; receiving a request for a first operation to beperformed by the storage manager on behalf of the first component;performing the first operation on behalf of the first componentaccording to the first storage policy; receiving a request for a secondoperation to be performed by the storage manager on behalf of the secondcomponent; and performing the second operation on behalf of the secondcomponent according to the second storage policy.
 3. The method of claim2, wherein the first component comprises one of the one or more clientcomputing devices in the first data storage cell, and the secondcomponent comprises one of the one or more client computing devices inthe second data storage cell.
 4. The method of claim 2, furthercomprising: receiving a third request to allow a third component of athird data storage cell of the plurality of data storage cells toutilize the storage management services provided by the storage manager;and in response to a determination that the third component is to beassigned to the first group, assigning the third component to the firstgroup associated with the first storage policy.
 5. The method of claim2, wherein the first data storage cell further comprises one or moresecondary storage devices configured to store the secondary copies ofthe primary data in the first data storage cell, and the second datastorage cell further comprises one or more secondary storage devicesconfigured to store the secondary copies of the primary data in thesecond data storage cell.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein saidperforming the first operation comprises instructing at least one of theone or more secondary storage computing devices in the first datastorage cell to perform one or more operations associated with the firstoperation, and said performing the second operation comprisesinstructing at least one of the one or more secondary storage computingdevices in the second data storage cell to perform one or moreoperations associated with the second operation.
 7. The method of claim2, wherein the first group is associated with a first firewall group,and the second group is associated with a second firewall groupdifferent from the first firewall group.
 8. The method of claim 2,further comprising: facilitating, by one or more proxy servers,communication between the storage manager and the first data storagecell and communication between the storage manager and the second datastorage cell; and managing, by the one or more proxy servers, firewallsettings and groups on behalf of the storage manager.
 9. The method ofclaim 2, wherein each of the first operation and the second operationcomprises initiation and/or management of one or more of a backup copyoperation, a snapshot operation, archiving operation, a replicationoperation, or a restore operation.
 10. The method of claim 2, whereinthe request for the first operation is entered by a user of the firstdata storage cell via a user interface that provides access to only asubset of the storage management services provided by the storagemanager, and the request for the second operation is entered by anotheruser of the second data storage cell via another user interface thatprovides access to only a subset of the storage management servicesprovided by the storage manager.
 11. The method of claim 2, wherein theprimary data and the secondary copies of the primary data associatedwith the first data storage cell and the primary data and the secondarycopies of the primary data associated with the second data storage cellare not accessible by the storage manager.
 12. A data storage systemconfigured to provide shared data storage management services to aplurality of data storage cells, comprising: a storage managercomprising one or more hardware processors and configured to: receive afirst request to allow a first component of a first data storage cell ofa plurality of data storage cells to utilize storage management servicesprovided by the storage manager and a second request to allow a secondcomponent of a second data storage cell of the plurality of data storagecells to utilize the storage management services provided by the storagemanager, each of the first data storage cell and the second data storagecell comprising at least: (i) one or more client computing devicescomprising computer hardware and configured to generate primary data,and (ii) one or more secondary storage computing devices comprisingcomputer hardware and configured to cause storage of secondary copies ofthe primary data at the direction of the storage manager; determine thatthe first component is to be assigned to a first group associated with afirst storage policy; determine that the second component is to beassigned to a second group different from the first group, the secondgroup associated with a second storage policy; receive a request for afirst operation to be performed by the storage manager on behalf of thefirst component; perform the first operation on behalf of the firstcomponent, according to the first storage policy receiving a request fora second operation to be performed by the storage manager on behalf ofthe second component; and performing the second operation on behalf ofthe second component according to the second storage policy.
 13. Thesystem of claim 12, wherein the first component comprises one of the oneor more client computing devices in the first data storage cell, and thesecond component comprises one of the one or more client computingdevices in the second data storage cell.
 14. The system of claim 12,wherein the storage manager is further configured to: receive a thirdrequest to allow a third component of a third data storage cell of theplurality of data storage cells to utilize the storage managementservices provided by the storage manager; and in response to adetermination that the third component is to be assigned to the firstgroup, assign the third component to the first group associated with thefirst storage policy.
 15. The system of claim 12, wherein the first datastorage cell further comprises one or more secondary storage devicesconfigured to store the secondary copies of the primary data in thefirst data storage cell, and the second data storage cell furthercomprises one or more secondary storage devices configured to store thesecondary copies of the primary data in the second data storage cell.16. The system of claim 15, wherein the storage manager is configured toperform the first operation by instructing at least one of the one ormore secondary storage computing devices in the first data storage cellto perform one or more operations associated with the first operation,and the storage manager is configured to perform the second operation byinstructing at least one of the one or more secondary storage computingdevices in the second data storage cell to perform one or moreoperations associated with the second operation.
 17. The system of claim12, wherein the first group is associated with a first firewall group,and the second group is associated with a second firewall groupdifferent from the first firewall group.
 18. The system of claim 12,further comprising one or more proxy servers configured to facilitatecommunication between the storage manager and the first data storagecell and communication between the storage manager and the second datastorage cell, wherein the one or more proxy servers are furtherconfigured to manage firewall settings and groups on behalf of thestorage manager.
 19. The system of claim 12, wherein each of the firstoperation and the second operation comprises initiation and/ormanagement of one or more of a backup copy operation, a snapshotoperation, archiving operation, a replication operation, or a restoreoperation.
 20. The system of claim 12, wherein the request for the firstoperation is entered by a user of the first data storage cell via a userinterface that provides access to only a subset of the storagemanagement services provided by the storage manager, and the request forthe second operation is entered by another user of the second datastorage cell via another user interface that provides access to only asubset of the storage management services provided by the storagemanager.
 21. The system of claim 12, wherein the primary data and thesecondary copies of the primary data associated with the first datastorage cell and the primary data and the secondary copies of theprimary data associated with the second data storage cell are notaccessible by the storage manager.